TAA Special Edition: Laborious Labyrinth
by PurplePiplup
Summary: Does Team Rocket ever REALLY give up? Judging by this, I'd say no. Mostly insanity, but it actually makes the cast think. LAST PART updated 5/03/03.
1. Why Eevy hates Team Rocket

Laborious Labyrinth ~ Part 1 of 7  
By: Pro_V  
_A/N: The weirdness factor's been toned up a bit for this one…Without giving anything away, the rooms were all created by my father. Yeah, you've seen some of his ideas in the story before…Hope you like it ~_^_

"I choose you!" a Poke'Ball flew forward, breaking open on the grass a few feet in front of the trainer who threw it; it revealed a Flareon with slightly off-color fur.

"I can counter that! I choose you!" another Poke'Ball was tossed out onto the field, the pinkish light forming a Drowzee.

The girl who sent out the Flareon grinned and waved at the Drowzee as it waved back at her. The guy who sent out the Drowzee nearly facefaulted. Noticing her opponent's look of annoyance, the girl sent her Flareon in to battle. The Drowzee clapped and put up a Barrier, bouncing the Tackling Flareon away. The blue and green in the girl's eyes twirled around each other. She grinned and ordered a Flamethrower. The fire blasted forward and the other trainer ordered a Light Screen. The flames broke the shield and crashed into the Psychic-type. He stepped back and stomped forward.

"Weehee!" the girl clapped, "Great! Now!" she threw up her arm and dropped it to point out, "Use Fury Tackle!"

"Drowzee!" he pointed with his right hand, but spun and threw out his left, "Use Confusion!"

The Flareon rolled back and the Drowzee ran forward. He raised a hand and went to Pound the Flareon, but the Fire Pokemon sprang to the side and rammed forward, bashing the Psychic-type away. The Flareon bounded for the disoriented Drowzee and blasted him with an Ember. The Drowzee flipped head over heels and landed on his back, eyes spinning.

"Well done," he brushed the short white cape back over his shoulders, "Return, Drowzee. Good battle. Now go!" he let the Poke'Ball hover over his hand a moment before throwing it, "Electrode!"

"Hurrah!" the girl accepted the Flareon to her shoulder, "You did great! Return and rest a bit. Now I choose you!" she threw another Poke'Ball forward, letting loose an Eevee with a scar on his ear and eye.

"Go, Electrode! Attack with Thunderbolt, now!"

"Counter attack with Contact Tail Whip!"

The Eevee flew forward and smacked the Electrode with his tail. The Electrode winced and attacked again, this time with a Thunder Wave. The Eevee spun, again using his tail to attack, and whipped it around like a propeller. It refracted the paralyzing Electric-type attack. The Electrode's master growled, holding his Poke'Ball in a tight grasp.

"Go! Use RollOut!"

"Use Shadow Ball!"

The sphere of purple, black, and bright pink collided directly with the spinning ball of white and red which was Electrode. It pushed him away and sent him sailing into the air. He cried out and spun furiously in mid-air, screeching as he approached the ground. His Poke'Ball was raised.

"Return now, Electrode!" the screaming Bomb Ball Pokemon was recalled and his trainer sighed, "Great job. You tried your best."

"Wahah!" the Eevee ran to his master, "Well done, little friend! Well done!"

"You're getting even stronger," the other trainer spun a Poke'Ball on his finger, "Which is kind of scary, considering you were strong to begin with."

"Thanks, cous," she smirked, "Return now, Vovo," Eevy's eyes returned to normal as she pulled her Eevee back to his Star Ball, "You're getting stronger too. But when are you going to evolve that ugly Drowzee of yours?"

Eusine glared at her slightly, "Probably the same time he gets rid of that flippy thing he calls his hair," came a third voice, "Which will be never."

Eusine growled and clenched his fists, "How do _you_ like it, Mortimer Michael?!" he snapped, turning toward the older of his two cousins.

"Oh, nyaa!" Morty waved his hand at him, "And stop calling me that!"

"Aww, stop fighting, you two!" Eevy threw an arm over each of their shoulders, "Let's go back up to the Mansion and grab some lunch."

"But it's half past three…" Eusine tilted his head.

"Yeah? What's your point?" Morty snickered and ran forward, "Race you!"

"Hey! When will you ever out-grow this kind of stuff?!" Eevy ran after.

"Probably the same time you stop being his baby sister! Which will be never!" Eusine bolted by.

All three sped past the Pokemon Center, groups of Pokemon trainers flying out after them, screaming for them to look back. All three paused, turned, bowed, and then took off again. Men and women alike _screamed_ after them as they approached Rainbow Bluff, near the eastern end of Rainbow Metro. Unbeknownst to any of them, even despite their psychic abilities, a shadowed girl stood in the crowd, moving with it, but talking into a microphone attached to her flopped red-and-white hat. She fiddled with her two large blond pigtails subconsciously and stared at Eevy as she and her brother and cousin ran through the front door of Rainbow Mansion, slamming it shut and locking it behind them.

"I've spotted her. But she isn't alone."

*^~^**^~^*

"Mobs of fans," Eevy guzzled her water bottle, "Gotta love 'em."

Lance closed his eyes, crossed his arms, and shook his head, "You are the one and only Champion I've ever known who _liked_ running from screaming people."

"You should try it sometime. It's a great source of exercise," she poked his stomach with her bottle, "Pudgy."

"Very funny," he narrowed one eye at her.

"Just you wait," Will pointed out from his seat on the cabinet behind them, "When one of those _mobs of fans_ catches you, you'll change your mind."

"Meh," she waved her hand at him, "I'm too fast for 'em."

"Sure you are," Luri rolled her eyes, "One of these days though."

"Ooh…My stomach," Mizu slumped down in her chair.

"Look at it this way: Just six and a half more months," Lisle grinned evilly from the chair next to her.

Mizu glared off at her, "The past two and a half have gone slow enough. All together, nine will take forever."

"Oh well," Medira shrugged, "Just hope for a girl. That'll make it a little better anyway."

Eusine just sat in the corner, quietly trying to ignore the conversation completely. He was finally getting a break from taking care of Marina and didn't even want to _think_ about taking care of _two_ kids in a mere six months. Morty thought it was just _hilarious_ that his cousin was in such a predicament. Too bad it was going to get worse in just a few short hours.

Jason tossed a Poke'Ball up and down, throwing it around, "Oh, Eevy. You got a call while you were out. It was a number I didn't recognize, so I didn't pick it up. I wrote it down for you," he tossed a paper at her.

She snatched it from the air without touching it, drawing to her hands by use of her powers, "Let's see," she examined it for a mere second, "You dork!" she smacked Jason over the head, "This is Ash's number!"

"Oops," Jason cringed, ducking slightly.

"Yay for us…The _kid_'s number," Lance puffed, growling slightly.

"Oh, stop it," Eevy flicked his nose, "Be right back! Have to make a phone call!" she hopped out the door and down the hall.

She slid to a stop in front of a door and jumped for the videophone. She smacked down the number and waited a moment before a Pokemon picked up.

"Mr. Mime!" Mimie cried waving to her.

"Hiya, Mimie! Is Ash in?" Eevy frowned as Mimie shook his head, "No? How about Delia? Is she there?" Mimie nodded, "Great! Can you please get her for me?"

Mimie nodded again and hopped away, then shoving Delia into the chair, "Oh, hello, Eevy!" Delia chirped, "I was hoping you'd call back!"

"_You_ called me, Mrs. Ketchum?" Eevy's head fell to the side.

"Well, yes, but I called for Ash," she dug around papers beside the phone, "Here it is! Ash wanted me to tell you…" she scanned a paper, "…That Pikachu, Togepi and, well…Brock…Have been wanting to come visit…He's packed a few things, including the others, and he's on his way over with Maren."

"Oh! Great! Thanks for calling! And I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier. I was training with my cousin and my brother."

"Oh, that's all right. It gave us some time to bake some muffins," she grinned and patted Mimie's head.

"Ooh," Eevy smirked back, "They wouldn't be…Raspberry, would they?"

Delia smiled wide, "I've already got some wrapped up for you. Sent them with Ash just as he left."

Eevy's eyes went wide as could be, "If I could get to you, I'd kiss you. Your muffins are delish! Especially the raspberry ones."

"It's a mix, really. Blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, and banana-nut," Delia leaned off to tell Mimie to check the other muffins, "Hope you enjoy them."

"I'm sure I will! I'll just have to keep them away from Lance," she snickered, then looked off to the side as the door creaked, "Can you hang on just a sec? Thanks," she leaned back and looked out the door, "Hmm…" she reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the ketchup packets she always had with her, "Trade ya'."

A little yellow paw slid a muffin wrapped in raspberry red across the floor. Eevy laughed and tossed the ketchup toward the doorway. The yellow paw returned to snatch it.

Eevy looked back to the phone and held up the muffin, "I presume this is yours?"

Delia nodded and smiled, "Yes! That's one of mine! I'll let you go then. Tell the kids hello for me."

"I will," she muffled while jamming the muffin in her mouth, "And thanks again," she swallowed and hung up, "Come here, my little Pikamigo!"

"Pika pi-pika!" Pikachu scampered in the door and hopped up into her lap, tossing the empty ketchup wrapper in the trashcan as he ran, "Pika-pika pikachu!"

"You're welcome," she patted his head, "Where's your master?"

"Pikapi!" Pikachu called out the door, "Pikapi! Pi-pika cha!"

"Where are you, Pikachu? Did you find Eevy? Or is it just ketchup?" Ash wondered along the hall, searching for his rodent friend, "Well there's ketchup paw prints on the floor out here, so I'm guessing you went in this door…" he slowly peeked in, "There you are! And hello, Eevy!"

"Hiya, Ashy-boy!" she smirked at the scowl he shot, "Sending your Pokemon to look for me?"

"No. He ran up here on his own," he shrugged, plucking Pikachu from Eevy's head, "Probably smelled that red gunk right through your pocket and into the wrapper. And I see he gave you one of my mom's muffins."

"Yeah. I just got off the phone with her. She says hello. And thanks for bringing them. They're great, as usual! Where's everybody else?" she grinned as Pikachu hopped on Ash's head, then back onto hers.

"Downstairs," he started walking out as Eevy did, "Probably pigging-out on your muffins."

"No!" Eevy sped forward, "Not my muffins!"

*^~^**^~^*

After prying the muffin box from Lance and Jason and hiding it in the cabinet (with a few booby traps, knowing her), and after keeping Lance from beating on Ash a bit, Eevy had an appointment, of sorts, to meditate with Will. She questioned him on it, but he told her it'd have to wait. He had to accompany the Metro-clueless Eusine into the League City to get something for Mizu, as no one else would go and Eusine didn't want to bother Eevy when she had company. Cheap shot at getting out of training, Eevy thought. She'd have to try it sometime.

So, in light of this, she patted Pikachu goodbye, and wandered off to the porch. She climbed up on the railing, hoisting herself up onto the roof and settling herself. After watching the clouds for a moment or two, she crossed her legs and sat silently. Without Will, she wasn't as entranced as she could have been, which she didn't mind. She merely sat quietly and thought about nothing. Peeking out from behind a building a few yards away, the blond with pigtails again spoke into the mic on her hat.

A small black blimp lifted up out of Spectral Spirit Woods behind the house. It raised just enough to hover over the treetops and glided along. In her current state, Eevy didn't hear, or even sense, the oncoming trespassers. She merely sat there, ignoring everything but herself. The blimp was nearly completely silent, and with all the fighting inside Rainbow Mansion, no one else heard it either. A rope ladder dropped and unfolded as it fell and dangled just above the porch. Three figures dressed in grey, red, and black climbed down, the last accidentally stomping as he hopped down. Eevy's concentration broke and she shot to her feet, turning quickly. She started to snap at the three men standing there, but an explosion from behind sounded a tad more urgent. A black blast of electricity smashed into her as she turned. She shrieked and screamed, jolting and sparking with electricity.

Eusine turned to look back at Will as the Psychic Master stopped in mid-step, holding his head and groaning, "Are you all right?" he sat his backpack down and looked him over, "What's wrong?"

Will slapped him back, "Go. Get back to the Mansion," he looked up at him, "Hurry up! Eevy's in trouble!"

"What about you?! Eevy would kill me if I left you here like this!"

"If you don't go now, you may not have to worry about Eevy killing anyone!" he hissed, pointing down the road, "Run, Eusine!"

Eusine grabbed his backpack and bolted as Will stumbled to his feet and followed as fast as his legs would go. His every bone ached and stung, which meant that Eevy had been knocked cold and what she couldn't feel while unconscious was being passed to him. Upon hearing Eevy's scream, the group that had been fighting inside came rumbling out onto the porch. They looked up, spotting a black blimp with a bold red **R** on each side hovering there. Hanging from the hatch was a rope ladder. Bashou was near the top, looking down at Tyson, who looked down at Buson. Buson had one arm strung through one of the ladder's rope rungs and the other firmly holding Eevy's right wrist, allowing the Champion Mistress to dangle lifelessly.

"Hey!" Morty spat, "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Heh…Whatever we want!" something zipped overhead as Domino flew above them on her hang glider and landed in the hatch of the blimp.

"You let her go right now!" Lance thundered, "You've got to be crazy to think I'll let you get away with this!"

"Go ahead and do what you want!" Tyson waved down at them, "But you'll have to be quick at it! Go, Fearow! Attack!"

"Steelix! Attack them now!" Bashou tossed his Poke'Ball down after climbing up beside Domino.

"Skarmory! Do your job!" Buson kicked his off one of the clips on his boot.

The Steelix roared and bashed around in front of them, throwing them away as Skarmory and Fearow clawed at them. Eusine and Will were both approaching, but were tossed back by one of the two dive-bombing Fearow. Lance went for his Poke'Ball, but Steelix's tail crashed down in front of him, rolling him head over heels in the opposite direction. Ash and Richie were tossed one way, Misty and Kayla another, Brock and Tracey over Steelix's head, and Sooney rolled back beside where Mizu and Lisle had been pushed. Luri and Medira jumped back from Fearow, but Skarmory slammed them from behind, pushing them back toward Fearow and crushing them between both birds' beaks. Jason and Morty were outrunning the other Fearow until Steelix's tail emerged from the ground under them and threw them off to the right, where they landed smack-dab on top of Eusine and Will. Team Rocket grinned as Buson neared the top of the ladder. Eevy stirred and started flailing and kicking.

"You! You-You-You dirt bags! Let me go! Let me go right now!" by the time she was awake enough to fight, all four Rockets had her, pulling her up and in the hatch, "Get away! Let go! Help m-" Buson cracked his hand over her mouth.

"Eevy!" Lance scrambled to his feet, "Eevy! No!" he winced at his stinging arm, "Evangelina!"

Eevy pushed and pulled and kicked, yanking her way to the open hatch as the blimp flew higher and higher, "_Dragon_!" she wailed as Bashou and Domino pulled her back and Tyson slammed the hatch shut.

*^~^**^~^*

Domino was standing at the wheel, directing the blimp this way and that, Eevy was handcuffed, tied, and chained to a chair by the wall, and Bashou, Buson, and Tyson were playing cards at the other end of the room. Eevy glared down at the floor, thinking how stupid she must have been to go anywhere alone anymore. What if it hadn't been Team Rocket? It could have been Taylor. Or Rubeus. _That_ would have put a _real_ crimp in her _life_. Like an abrupt stop to it. She glanced off at Tyson and Buson, beating on Bashou because he was supposedly cheating, and over at Domino, who was gnawing on strawberry gum Eevy could smell all the way over where she was. She swallowed and looked down at the glass bell hanging on her necklace. Was this why had they kidnapped her so suddenly?

She suddenly felt their altitude drop and watched the guys pick up their cards. She heard metal sliding across metal and watched the windows as the tops of trees came into view. They were landing…They passed through some kind of mechanical hatch in the ground. Domino sauntered over and grinned at her, untying her and unchaining her, but leaving the handcuffs on.

"Come on," she yanked her along, "No dawdling and no talking."

Eevy rolled her eyes, deciding it best to do as she was told. Maybe if she was silent…

*^~^**^~^*

Lance growled and grunted as Will's Xatu mended his broken arm, then swung it to test it. Morty and Eusine were curled up with their foreheads on their knees in the corner of the porch, seemingly bawling lowly to themselves. Ash, Misty, Brock, and Richie were trying to calm the spastic Kayla. She'd been Eevy's friend for years and couldn't stand this to the point that she was bashing the wall of the brick Rainbow Mansion with furious punches. Tracey was trying to get Sooney to stop rambling on about what disasters Eevy could be facing, most of which were so farfetched, even a leek-spinning bird Pokemon wouldn't have believed it. Luri, Medira, Lisle, and Jason were fighting to calm the infuriated Mizu, warning her she had to be still.

Will looked up as his Xatu did. His Pokemon tilted his head, as did Will. Xatu put his wings to his sides, bending them as much as his joints allowed, and Will put his hands at his hips. Xatu started swaying side to side and rocking back and forth and Will's shoulders and neck loosened to the point that he looked like he was asleep while standing. Luri looked at him, then alerted everyone else.

"Look!" she shrieked, pointing at him.

Will shot up straight and held his head, the light green and dark green in his eyes fighting each other for charge over which color his eyes would be, "Ert-ert," his Xatu called, wobbling and hobbling to his side.

"Yes, I'm fine," he placed his hand on his Pokemon's head and turned toward everyone else, swallowing hard, "I know where Eevy is."

"What?! Where?!" Lance grabbed his collar, "Where is she?!"

"She's somewhere to the north," Will pointed to his left, "She said she-"

"What do you mean _she said_?" Richie questioned blankly, now restraining the wailing Kayla.

"She…She spoke to me. Through our connection. She knows the trees that grow everywhere in Gertan Rin, and saw a type of pine that only grows north of here. She said they landed in a clearing, where a hatch opened in the ground and the blimp fit right inside. She broke her entire link with me, feelings and all, incase something happens to her," Will glared off to the north.

Lance stared off to the side, reaching inside his coat and tossing a Poke'Ball forward, "Rage Ball! Go! Draco, I choose you!" he ran for his Dragonite and jumped on, "I'm going after her. If you want to stay, stay," the Dragonite lifted off and shot northward.

"How do we Fly?" Ash frowned, "None of our Pokemon can do that…"

"We don't Fly," Brock smirked, "We roll! Go, Onix!"

Ash, Misty, Sooney, Tracey, Richie, and Kayla piled onto Onix's back, following Draco as fast as the Rock Snake could go, "I choose you! Wind Dance!" Medira grabbed Jason's collar as she whipped past, "You can ride with me!"

Morty and Eusine looked up, faces red, then looked to each other, "Let's go," they nodded together, "Haunter! We choose you two!" they both called.

Two Haunter emerged, one grabbing Morty with one hand and Lisle with the other, and the other snatching Eusine and Mizu in the same way. Will's Xatu scrambled forward, zipping under him and lifting off. Will caught Luri's raised arm and pulled her up behind him. Lance's Dragon suddenly veered off to the side, Lance directing it to do so. He landed slowly, the other Pokemon staying suspended. Lance pounded on the window to the front gate. His brother opened the sliding window and waved.

"Hi! Wanna play some Uno?" Victor grinned.

"Shut up!" Lance dragged him halfway out the window, "Get Dargo and Durga and get your butts out here!" he snorted as Victoria peeked over to see what was happening.

"What's wrong?" Vic asked while prying her twin's collar from her older brother's grasp.

"It's Team Rocket!" Kayla suddenly cried, "They took Eevy!" she started sobbing again and nearly knocked Richie flying when she latched onto him.

"They took Eevy?!" Vic pushed Victor the rest of the way out the window and hopped out behind him, "Not allowed!" she puffed, "Durga! I need you!"

"No way they're taking Eevy away from you before I get to!" Victor grinned at the _evil_ look Lance shot, "Dargo! I call you!"

Both Dragonite, though smaller than Draco, were his older brother and sister. They were both hatched from larger Eggs, but were half Draco's size. Explain _that one_. After all three Ryujin had hopped on their Dragonites' backs, Will's Xatu led the way to where he could sense the Champion Mistress's energy; Machete Forest in southern Hokubu. Kratos looked out his office window and tilted his head at the Pokemon thundering by, both by land and by air.

"Well…" he murmured as Rachel wandered up beside him, "There's something you don't see every day…"

*^~^**^~^*

"It worked," Eevy sighed thankfully.

Her silence had made it possible for her to connect with her psychic link back at Rainbow Metro. She knew she could trust Will and knew that he and everyone else would do anything and everything in their power to get her out of there. Domino had wondered off somewhere, which left Bashou, Buson, and Tyson to sit in front of Eevy, playing cards again. Tyson had his back to her, and she grinned impishly.

"Full house, huh?" she sniggered, "Good cards."

Bashou and Buson tossed their cards into the air as Tyson turned to Eevy and growled lowly, "_Why_ did you do that?" he hissed.

"Hmm…Could it be because I hate you?" Eevy asked with a smirk and tone of utter sarcasm.

Tyson balled his fists just as the door opened, then shooting to his feet, "Now you'll get it," he glared, "Master Giovanni can take care of you."

"Shut your mouth, Tyson," Giovanni snapped, silencing the grunt quickly, "Well, hello, Mistress Hikoboshi."

"What do you want, Sakaki?" Eevy's eyes narrowed quickly, "If you think you're getting my Pokemon, you'd better think again, because so help me, if you-"

"It has nothing to do with your Pokemon," he patted his Persian's head, "Only to do with Pokemon of which you have an acquaintance to," he pulled the Bell on her necklace up to her nose, "And which I believe happen to know this bell."

Eevy gasped and growled, "The Legends?! You must be crazy if you think I'd give you any information on them!" if her legs had been loose, she would have kicked him, "I will _never_ tell you _anything_ about the Beasts or the Birds! Not a thing about Mew and Mewtwo! And nothing on Lugia or Celebi! You can do what you please to me, but I will never speak a word of them to you or _anyone_ from your decrepit _team_ of losers and slackers!"

Giovanni pulled the necklace off and tossed it at Buson, who tucked it in his pocket, "You can go on believing what you will, but given the right incentives, you _will_ comply. You have too many friends. Too much family. You're easy to play on."

"You leave them alone! You hear me?!" she gnarled as he walked off, his Persian following, "Don't you lay a finger on them! Any of them!"

The door slammed shut as Domino waved through the opening. Eevy started turning a hot red, her eyes glowing violently. Bashou, Buson, and Tyson grinned at her, then went on about other things. Eevy clenched her teeth, her eyes shut tightly.

"They only want the Legends for their powers. To use them for what they believe will be controlling the world. I can't let that happen," she balled her fists behind her and moved them to cross her wrists, "No bindings can hold me. And by God…Neither can any man alive," snapping her arms apart, the ropes ripped, the chains snapped, and the cuffs pulled apart.

*^~^**^~^*

"Hey, guys!" Brock waved up to the Pokemon flying above his Onix's head, "Look at this!"

After every Pokemon had landed, the trainers began examining the ground on which they stood, "This must be the place," Lisle looked at the nearly invisible seam-like line in the grass.

"Xatu, do you sense her?" Will looked at his Pokemon.

"Ert-ert," the Pokemon bobbled back to front, nodding.

"Good. This is it then," Lance looked around bit, "But how do we get down there?"

"Well…If the blimp landed here, maybe it's activated by something. Like a motion sensor or a step pad…" Sooney wandered about.

"Maybe…Maybe it's weight activated?" Misty suggested, everyone looking at her, "Well…Planes must weigh a ton, so maybe when there's a certain weight on the platform, it drops."

"Could be. Let's try it," Luri shrugged and stepped past the seam.

"I can handle the weight part. Onix, forward," Brock pointed onto the platform.

The ground shook as everyone jumped on. Draco, Durga, and Dargo stood in front of Onix, prepared to blast anything that may have been in the way. As soon as the platform dropped, buzzers and sirens sounded from every direction and grunts dressed in black and white and executives dressed in purple came running from the doors lining the walls of the long metal-walled hallway.

"Well…A welcoming party," Jason smirked, crossing his arms.

Medira, who was sitting on her Pidgeot, giggled at Jason, "Wind Dance!" she called, "Fly up now!" the Pidgeot lifted off into the air, "Whirlwind attack!"

Grunts went flying as Medira swooped again and again, shoving them away with heaves of her Pidgeot's wings. Pikachu hopped forward, bounding out into the center of the hall. Three voices rang out from the back of the grunts that remained standing.

"It's the twerp!" cried two humans and a Pokemon.

"Oh no…" Ash slapped his own forehead as Jessie, James, and Meowth shoved their way to the front, bumping Butch and Cassidy aside, "Go, Pikachu!"

"Kingdra! I choose you!" Kayla called, letting her Poke'Ball fly, "Kingdra! Use Whirlpool!"

"Duu-duu!" the Pokemon cried, raising his head and dropping it to shoot a spinning funnel of water.

Grunts were sent sailing as the water rushed along the hallway, pushing some back and into the crates that lined the walls. A Gloom rushed about, spouting poisonous powder everywhere. Sooney ordered a Sleep Powder and Rockets started dropping like flies, snoring away. Crates and tanks exploded left and right as Onix flailed and smashed things away and Corsola hopped along, Tackling things.

"Go, Weezing! Attack!" James ordered.

"Arbok! You too!" Jessie called.

"Haunter! Go!" Morty and Eusine called, "Hypnosis, now!"

Both Haunter raised their hands, rocking them side to side. Arbok and Weezing swayed for a moment or two before dropping into a peaceful slumber. Scyther and Scizor lunged forward, shoving the Pokemon back into their trainers. Jessie, James, Meowth, Arbok and Weezing tumbled back, other grunts dodging them. They collided with a tank of something, knocking it over and spilling black liquid everywhere. Now that things were narrowed down a bit…

"Sparky!" Richie threw his Poke'Ball forward.

"Pikachu!" Ash pointed out into the center of the room.

"Thunder attack, now!" they called as everyone gathered behind Onix, ducking.

"Pika…Pika…Pika…Pika…Pika_CHIU_!"

A bolt of lightning rolled down from the sky and exploded in the middle of the room. The blast was strong enough that Onix slid back a bit, pushing everyone behind him along as well. Onix roared and everyone screamed as Pikachu's electricity sparked a fire in the oil that had spilled. Lance peeked over Onix as fire alarms blared and the Rockets that remained, though very few, started worrying more about the flames than the intruders.

"Now is our chance," he recalled Draco, who'd been huddled beside him, as everyone else also brought back their Pokemon, "They're focused on the fire. Let's go."

Xatu, who'd been left out for location purposes, hopped to a door and threw it open with his powers. He kept moving and everyone followed. Giovanni sat, examining a video screen with his right fist against his mouth. They were destroying everything. If they continued at this pace, he wouldn't have the time he needed to get the Champion Mistress to use the Bell. He wanted those Legendary Pokemon and that was all there was to it. For him, anyway.

*^~^**^~^*

Xatu bounced along the long hallway the group had come to. They ducked quickly as a group of grunts passed by. With them were Wendie and Mondo. The whole group of black and white clad Rockets hurried past, not even bothering to look back. Xatu continued along and stopped in front of one of three doors. He then moved to the next. Then the next.

"Which one, Xatu? Is she behind one of these doors?" Will asked it as it continued to go from one door to the next.

"Ert-ert!" it cried and indicated the first door.

"Guess this is it," Tracey looked the door over.

Lance checked the handle, finding it to be locked. He stepped back and bashed the door, slamming it open. He tripped in, everyone else following. Eevy looked to the door and beamed, leaving her solitaire game laid out on the floor.

"Hey, guys!" she shrieked, "What took you so long?"

"Took us…So long?" Ash scratched his head, as did everyone else.

"Pika?" Pikachu also questioned.

"Great job, Xatu!" Will praised his Pokemon, "Superb! You'd better rest a bit. You've had a hard day."

Lance pushed his way around everyone and latched onto Eevy, "You're all right! They didn't hurt you, did they?"

"Who?" Eevy tilted her head and shoved him back, "You mean those three?" she pointed off to the side.

Pikachu toppled off Ash's shoulder and Morty and Eusine shook their heads. Bashou's shirt collar was hooked to a coat hanger on the wall, wrists and ankles bound with rope. Tyson was hanging upside-down from a pipe running from wall to wall, chains wound tightly around him. And Buson was in Eevy's chair, handcuffs securely wrapped around the back rungs to keep him from just standing and walking off without a fight. Lance twitched slightly.

"Don't worry about _those_ three. Someone will find 'em. Sooner or later," she shrugged and gathered up her cards, "Here ya' go, buddy," she stuffed the pack in Tyson's mouth as he growled at her, "And I believe this is mine. Thank you," she pulled her Bell from Buson's pocket and started out with everyone else, "Have fun, boys!"

"There! Now let's get out of here," Kayla suggested thankfully.

"I think not," a black Persian trotted in, followed by Jen, Jaz, Mondo, Giovanni, and Giovanni's Persian, "You're not going anywhere."

"Way to tell 'em, Persian," Jen nodded and smiled evilly.

Morty and Eusine stomped in front of Eevy, "Back it off, Sakaki," Morty hissed, "And get out of the way."

"You'd think I'd let you on your way, wouldn't you?" Giovanni left his hands in his pockets, "And after what you did to my three strongest Executives…It might be a wise decision to do just that. But," he smiled evilly, "You see, I can't do that. I want that Bell and your Legends. And like it or not, in one way or another, I'll get all that and more."

"Yeah, sure you will," Luri rolled her eyes, "It surprises me how much of a baka some people can be."

"Well, Mistress Sedna," Giovanni removed his left hand from his pocket, "If _I_ am such a baka, why is it _you_ who has fallen right into a trap?"

Everyone looked at each other with expressions of _yeah right_, "Sure we did," Vic shook her head.

Mondo, Jen, and Jaz released and dragged the Cadre Rockets out as Giovanni smirked, "Yes. You did. And if you don't mind, I'd like you to _fall_ just a bit more," he flicked what Eevy had thought was a light switch and stepped back, "Have fun. And good luck."

The door slid shut and the crates along the walls started sliding in on their own. Everyone backed together, seeing the crates were on tracks in the floor. The boxes lined up and blocked anyone from moving beyond them. Kayla screamed and latched onto Sooney, who also started screaming. The boxes then started sliding closer as a line on either side.

"We're trapped!" Victor backed away toward the center of the room, "We're gonna get flattened like pancakes!"

Misty screeched and cuddled Pikachu and Togepi, wailing helplessly, "I don't want to die! I'm too young to die! I can't die!"

Morty and Eusine backed in toward Eevy, "This is…Really bad," Eusine shivered.

"We kind of noticed," his cousins sweatdropped.

"What do we do?!" Luri cried, looking frantically around the slowly shrinking space they had.

Lance backed away, shaking uncontrollably, "Small…Space…Small…Space…"

His brother and sister helped him to stay standing as Ash ran toward them to question if Draco and his siblings could help. Will was heading for Eevy, Morty, and Eusine to try something with their psychic abilities. A slight creaking noise caused everyone to stop. The floor opened right up, splitting in half and falling down. Screams echoed throughout the tiny room as everyone dropped straight down. Four tunnels below them open and closed randomly, sending everyone down a different slide. Will fell into one, Luri into three, Lance into two, and Jason into four. Eevy, Morty, and Eusine, who were latched onto each other and screaming, all dropped down one. Vic and V flew down two, Medira and Mizu rolled down three, one right after the other, and Brock, Tracey, Richie and Lisle flew down four. Kayla and Sooney flew down three, and two and four both opened right after. Ash and Misty flailed to go down the same tunnel together, but were pulled apart, Ash heading down two and Misty down four, clutching Pikachu, who was screaming for Pikapi. In his office, Giovanni sat laughing as the boxes returned themselves to their original places along the walls. His Persian purred away, cleaning her ear with her paw.

*^~^*Part 1: End*^~^*

_A/N: Look! I live! *wonders around like a zombie* Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. It's been a combination of writer's block and LayOut work and some of life's usual problems. But did you all see?! They're showing a preview of "Pocket Monsters Advance Generation" next weekend! FWEE! *runs around screaming* One full hour of Hoenn! *hops side to side* [Usagi: Wait a second...Isn't that the day your supposed to go to Disney World?] o_o WHAT?! *grabs her* I'm gonna miss it?! [It's called "video tape". You were going to tape it anyway.] O_O It's not the same! *wails and falls over twitching* [I...Think I killed her. o_O Anyways, since she seems to be AWOL or something right about now, this is Usa-chan telling you to head on over and read parts 2 and 3 of "Laborious Labyrinth"! ^_^]_

*^~^*Pro_V*^~^*  
.:O=Usagi-chan=O:.  
-=O~The Other Pokemon~O=-  
**Next:** Special Edition: Laborious Labyrinth: Part 2 of 7.  
_TAA Pokemon Of The Month: March 2003: The Tree Gecko Pokemon Jupitol_


	2. Lance and Ash as a team: Go figure

Laborious Labyrinth ~ Part 2 of 7  
By: Pro_V  
_A/N: OK...*brushes off* I'm up now, so let's get on with part 2, eh? Aheheh..._

Lance laid sprawled out on the center of a hard stone floor with his brother to his right and his sister to his left. He moaned and sat up, finding Ash flopped at his feet, flat on his face. Lance stood and brushed off, searching around the premises. Kind of small, but not small enough to give him a heart attack. He looked up, finding the room to be pitch-black, save the light from a small window at the top of the tall room they landed in. He heard a rumble and watched the tunnel they'd fallen from slam shut and lock. He shuddered, as he saw no other way out. His brother and sister moaned and sat up, then Ash came to, all three pairs of eyes spiraling and spinning.

Lance carefully helped his sister stand, ignoring his brother and the _kid_, "Where are we?" Vic murmured, holding her head.

"I don't honestly know," Lance looked upward and side to side, "But that little tunnel there is where we fell in from."

"This is totally warped…" Victor snorted, crossing his arms and legs while sitting in the corner, "The least they could have done is trapped me somewhere with a girl or two."

"Now is not the time for your idiocy!" Vic thundered, leaning toward him.

His hair merely swished at his sister's shouting, "Nope. Not one girl here…"

Vic growled and whipped out a mallet, smashing her twin over the head with it, "One of these days, you little-"

"Stop fighting," Lance puffed, "I'd rather like to get out of here if you don't mind."

"Okie!" Vic obeyed her older brother with ease, hopping up beside him and smiling crazily.

Victor groaned about his sore head before noticing Ash scrambling around on his hands and knees, "Um…Ash-chan…What are you up to?"

"Looking for Pikachu!" he screeched, searching high and low, "Does anybody see him?!"

"I think I saw Misty with him just before we fell down here…" Vic put her right index finger up to her temple, "But I may be mistaken, or they may have gotten separated."

Ash sprawled out on his back, wailing helplessly as Lance snorted and searched around, "Is this some kind of sick joke, Sakaki?!" he roared, "Or are you afraid to let me out to find you?!"

With perfect timing to the word _afraid_, two lights lit on the opposite wall, revealing a door with a Marowak head-shaped handle. As these two lights came on, the tiny window above them slammed shut, leaving their facial features illuminated with eerie fiery light. Vic cowered up behind Lance, ducking under his cloak and shaking. Lance rolled his eyes and walked for the door, pulling his sister's cover away. She shrieked and followed quickly, holding his shoulders.

"That's more like it," Lance fumed, slowly turning the handle.

"Yeah!" Victor snorted, trying to sound important.

Ash sprang to his feet, flailing out behind the Ryujin trio just before the door slammed shut. They found themselves in a tall dome-shaped room. The floor was black marble with a central design Lance recognized from his studies of the Wandering Beasts when he was but a preteen in Blackthorn. It showed all seventeen Pokemon elements along with some decorative swirls and motifs. A lamp to their left flickered on with a hot red bulb, then another beside it lit with a blue bulb, then another with yellow, and another with green. This pattern continued along around the circular room, the quartet's eyes following each light that appeared. It came out to a total of twelve lights, three of each color, with the last green light flickering to life beside the first red one.

"OK…I vote to leave now," Ash trembled behind Victor.

"Shut your mouth, _kid_," Lance growled, scowling back on him.

Vic peeked around her brother's side, ignoring his verbal duel, "Ooh…That's a pretty floor," she grinned, then walked around and out to the center to examine it better.

The floor Vic was standing on started to slowly quake. Victor hopped out beside her and the floor started falling. Only the elemental pattern descended as the marbled ring remained stationary. Lance jumped down the two feet it had dropped, dragging the whimpering Ash Ketchum behind him. As it fell another ten/fifteen feet, the floor started spinning clockwise. The podium finally stopped dropping, but the spinning refused to cease. The wall around the podium twirled counter-clockwise, a series of cubbyholes indented at even spacing. They looked up, finding the level they'd been at too high to reach.

Ash's eyes spun as he attempted to watch one door, "Oh…This is really, really nauseating…"

"Stop that," Lance gave him a good whack in the back of the head, "Draco, I choose you! Get us up to that upper level!" he threw his Rage Ball out onto the floor.

The Poke'Ball hit the ground, everyone expecting the great and terrible Draco Dragonite to burst out and carry them up. They all stood there, watching the Poke'Ball, waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

"What goes?!" Lance freaked, retrieving his Poke'Ball and throwing it again, "Come on, Draco! Come out!"

Still the Pokemon did not emerge. Lance flopped to his knees, bawling uncontrollably. Vic patted his head as his wailing slowed and he merely sniffled.

"It appears little Mr. Sakaki has decided we can't use our Pokemon," Victor crossed his arms, looking amazingly stupid with his hair whipping about and his face dead still.

"How can you tell that?" Ash asked, fingering his cap in both hands.

"Pulses of ionizing radiation can cause electron-hole pairs, causing electronic devices to not work. That keeps Poke'Balls from opening. Hopefully, it'll just be temporary and not permanent," Victor grinned in satisfaction with himself, then slouched slightly, looking thoughtful, "At least…That's something like what Kudou told me…"

"Who?" Ash was now feeling extremely dense and could feel Lance glaring slightly at him from behind.

"Kudou is a Pokemon researcher," Vic steadied her sniveling brother as he leaned his head on her shoulder, staring sadly at his Poke'Ball, "He's friends with Morty, Eusine and Eevy, and came to Rainbow Metro to visit them once. Mostly to nag on Eusine that he's a father," she snickered evilly.

"Oh…OK…" Ash shrugged and put his hat on backwards, "So…What do we do?"

"In your case, growing a brain might help a bit," Lance grumbled, then looking slightly more composed, "I want out of here."

"You should be nicer to me, ya' know," Ash crossed his arms and grinned, sticking his nose in the air, "Or else _Eevy_ will get angry. And _you_ wouldn't like that, would you?"

Lance clenched his fists at his sides and turned a hot red, his ears an even brighter crimson, "Listen, you little twerp!" he latched onto Ash's collar and hoisted him up the extra foot to his face, "You mouth off one more time and I swear to God I'll-"

"Lance, let him go!" Vic grabbed her brother's wrists, "Put him down, Lance!"

"Chill out, man!" Victor tried to drag him back by his cloak, "He's just trying to sound tough! Eevy and Draco will both be fine!"

"I swear, _kid_," Lance lifted Ash higher, "You make one more snide remark, and I'll pull you limb from limb. No hesitation, no matter _what_ Eevy thinks of you."

Ash was too petrified to move or offer a reply as Vic and Victor kept pulling their brother away, "Let him go!" Vic screeched, "This isn't helping our predicament at all!"

"Come on, Lance! If you want to get out of here and make sure Eevy and Draco are safe, let him go!" Victor started pulling harder.

Lance let go suddenly to pull forward on the neck of his cloak, but the spinning of the podium sent him tumbling back into his brother and sent his sister sailing. Ash dropped right to the floor and sprawled out as Vic tripped left, Victor right, and Lance straight back. Vic shrieked as she flew back into one of the cubbyholes on the wall, then sat up and watched her brothers do the same. Lance stumbled backwards, then spun to plant his face right on the back wall of one, and Victor rolled head-over-heels right into the box directly across from his twin. Ash started to sit up, ready to jump up and scramble away from Lance again, but saw that he didn't see any of the Ryujin trio. Anywhere. At all. His eyes nearly fell out as he looked up and saw the ceiling getting _a lot_ closer than it had been. He flopped out flat again and held his hat down, prepared to get flattened on the roof, but he felt the podium jolt and found himself but ten or twelve feet from the top of the dome. He sighed heavily and flopped to his side.

"What happened? Where are you guys?" he called, peeking over the edge.

Lance, who had both hands over his eyes, slowly separated his index and middle fingers. He shot up straight, back against the wall, and nearly suffocated. Vic and Victor also looked around blankly. The floor had risen again and blocked them right inside the cubbyholes they'd fallen into. About three feet across and tall and about two feet deep, they were quite the tiny spot to try and fit the six foot nine Dragon Master in. And we all know how Lance feels about…

"Small space!" came the sudden shriek from below, reverberating about the dome-shaped roof, "Heeelp!"

Vic and Victor sweatdropped as their brother started flailing and kicking aimlessly, screaming at the top of his lungs. That tiny, cramped box he was stuck in was giving him a heart attack. Or at least that's what it felt like to him. It was small, it was dark, it was small, it was musty, it was small, it was quiet (excepting his shrieking), and it was _extremely_ small. He stopped in mid-wail and pulled his knees to his chin, shaking and whining that he was going to die. Vic started feeling around the walls, searching for a switch or lever. She also noticed by doing this that the walls and the floor had both stopped spinning.

"Victor!" she called, "See if you can find a way out of these crazy things!"

"I have been!" he echoed back, "I can't see or feel anything except wall!"

Vic could now here Lance murmuring to himself, "I'm not going to die, just whither away," he was saying, "I never got to marry Eevy. Or kill Ash. But, hey. He's stuck too, so who really gives a flip and a half…"

"Instead of wallowing in your despair, you could be looking for a way out too," Victor puffed.

"Leave him alone. You know he's claustrophobic," Vic hissed back, "What are you doing up there, Ash?"

There was a slight pause before he answered, as he was hopping down off the podium and onto the floor beside the door they'd come in, "Looking for some way to drop this thing again. I don't see any kind of switches or levers or anything."

"I've gotta get out of here!" Lance suddenly burst, flipping out and kicking around again.

He kept swinging and squirming and yelling and blubbering…And Victor sweatdropped and Vic was starting to feel sorry for him. Ash was searching the premises above while the Ryujin searched below. As Lance fluttered, he kicked every wall, including the one in front. As he brought his foot around that way, the whole podium creaked and turned. He froze immediately and Ash jumped back as the podium moved. Lance reached down and found an opening on the lower section of the door. Telling himself that he had to do _something_ not to spazz again, he hooked his foot in it and pushed with all his might. The podium started moving along, spinning with pure foot-power.

"Who's doing what?" Victor leaned away from the outside wall as it moved.

"It's me!" Lance called, pushing along, "On the bottom of the outer wall. Put your foot in the grooves and push!"

Vic started kicking the wall around as her brother did, "What good is this doing us?" she partially snorted.

"Hold up!" Victor shouted over, "There's something on this wall here…" he leaned up to the wall, a panel suddenly shooting upward and opening another cubbyhole in the base of the podium, "AH! Oh…It's a motion sensor and a door."

Lance and Vic shot back as doors in front of them did the same, "Ahh! Space!" Lance cried and hopped into it.

Little did he know…His door slapped shut behind him and he began to wail again. The floor shook and started going up again as Vic and V lunged into the doors in front of them and watched the doors crash shut behind them. Ash backed up to the wall as the podium raised higher and higher, then stopped. Three metal doors shot open and the Ryujin trio toppled out onto the floor.

Lance stood and brushed off, slightly shivering, "That…Was satanic," he heaved slightly.

"Lance!" Vic shot to her feet and scrambled around to him, jumping at him, "You're OK!"

"Yes. I'm fine," he pried her off as Victor stumbled around to them drunkenly, "You all right?"

"Fine…Just a tad queasy," Victor muttered.

They looked up toward the top of the podium as a metallic grinding sound aroused their attention. The podium spun slightly and lowered to foot-level, then turning to stop in the exact same position it had been when they'd first walked in. All four trainers stared blankly.

"Well…" Ash tilted his left eyebrow up and right down again, "That was fun."

Lance glared slightly, "I'll make a deal with you, _kid_. If we get out of here alive, I'll wait until _after_ I'm through with Sakaki to kill you."

"Be nice," Vic advised, "We still have to figure out what's going on with this freakish room…"

"Hmm…" Victor examined the walls closely, "Well, there are no other doors here…"

"I am _not_ going down into that spinning hell-hole again," Lance informed him plainly with a cross of his arms.

"Come on, man! I want to get out of here!" Victor freaked.

"Nothin' doin'," Lance shook his head.

"Please, Lance?" Vic put on Jell-O puppy-dog eyes and pleaded with her older brother, "Pretty please? For me?"

Lance started sweating profusely, gnawing his bottom lip, "N-N-No!" he shook his head and spun away, "Do _not_ let the sad-eyed thing get to you…Do _not_ let the sad-eyed thing get to you…"

Ash got a sudden spark of genius (Wow! Really?!) and grinned smugly at Lance from his side, "Go back down there or I'll tell _Eevy_ you were screaming like a girl."

Lance appeared unfazed, "So what?" he thought, "Eevy knows I'm claustrophobic. And she knows I scream like a four-year-old girl…No matter how pathetic that may seem…"

But, then Ash played a trump card, "And I'll tell her you were mean to me."

Lance's eyes went wide and he twitched, remembering what Eevy had done to the enormous Buson, "Erm…Point, set, match, Ashura Ketchum. You little brat…" he murmured to himself and stepped _slowly_ onto the design.

Ash grinned in satisfaction with himself and hopped down beside Lance as the podium again began pirouetting. Lance scowled lowly at Ash, evil, but sadistically pleasing, thoughts of leaving the _kid_ trapped in the "spinning hell-hole" invading his previously grief-stricken mind. But, alas, if he left Ash trapped, harmed him in any way, or even looked at him funny, the little snot would go running to Eevy. She had all those mallets and paper fans and gongs and God knows what else hidden in that armament she called her bedroom closet. Plus she had those incredibly fast punches and kicks, along with that arsenal of Eevolutions that didn't like him anywhere near their Mistress. In short; she'd rip his face off, if not something else. The number of times he'd had to grab a shield; usually a pillow from a nearby couch…But by God; her heals hurt! So, in light of the fact that his beloved would try and kill him, he decided to be a happy-camper for the _kid_.

Sorta.

"How's about you knock your brain into gear or something, _kid_?" Lance pounded down on the top of Ash's head with his knuckles, "Or were you overloaded by thinking up that incredibly original- -_not_- -plan to get me down here?"

"Can't you be any nicer to me?" Ash asked with a smirk, "I mean, it's not _my_ fault you're a chicken."

"I'm gonna give you _such_ a _smack_," Lance snorted, raising a hand.

"Would you two break it up?!" Victor boomed, startling even Lance, "If you want out of here, stop your arguing!"

"All right, all right!" Lance waved both hands at Victor, "I get the drift! Geez, little bro. You really can be quite the demanding little boy, can't you?"

Victor turned slightly cross, "I'm not the one who's afraid of girls and closets…" he puffed while turning around.

"No, you just try to _get_ girls _in_ closets," he smirked evilly.

Victor shot up straight, ready to retort with mention of the time his older brother had gotten stuck in a closet with Eevy, but his sister pushed in, "All right, enough of that. Instead of snorting at each other, you could be figuring a way out of here."

"Meh," both brothers raised their right hand to one another and stomped off to opposite ends of the podium; _that_ they'd learned from their sister.

"So…" Ash looked nervously between the Ryujin trio, "What now?"

Lance grumbled and rocked his jaw, "I suppose we try and get out of here, eh?" he puffed with a pointed look, "Maybe if we each get in a box…"

"Yeah! Like connect four!" Vic smirked and shrieked at her older brother, "You're such a genius!"

Ash's eyes began to roll, but when he caught sight of the six foot nine Dragon Master glaring at him, his eyes shot off in the opposite direction, "Yeah, OK. So, what?"

Lance stomped up beside him, "I'm willing to do this, _kid_, so if you mess this up, I'll hurt you. Eevy or no," he snatched Ash's wrist, "Watch for a box…" he waited and suddenly bounded forward, "And jump!"

"WAH!" Ash squeaked helplessly as Lance threw him forward, sending him into one of the cubbyholes.

Lance tightly closed his eyes as he heard his brother and sister yell, "Bomb's away!" and lunge for their own boxes. He rolled his eyes, though they were still closed, and felt the spinning stop. He then heard the central podium lock in place. He slowly and carefully opened one eye.

"Oh, I do _not_ believe it," Victor snorted as the podium spun slightly and the sound of a metal door shooting open was heard, "Get in the stupid box and let's…Try again…"

Lance, though slightly shaken, crawled into the opposite box as it started moving upward. All four stumbled out beside the door they'd come in and the podium dropped again. Once more, they piled onto the central design and once more, they descended into the "spinning hell-hole". They tried again, this time all beside each other as a line of four. Again, they wound up kicking the podium around and springing out. Next they tried at even doors, then two beside two, then three across from one…And none of these worked. On about the seventh try, Vic stumbled around to her older brother and flopped against him.

"I can't take it anymore. I feel sick. And I'm tired. And hungry," she groaned, squeezing his waist, "Nighty-night."

"Wake up!" Lance suddenly shook her awake, "Don't fall asleep, Vic! Stay awake!" he stomped out into the center of the podium, dragging her with him as the still wobbling Ash and Victor followed, "I want out of this screwed-up excuse for a carnival attraction!" he stomped his right foot as hard as he could.

His boot pounded the floor so hard that the podium creaked. Everyone looked down as Lance pulled his foot away from the center ring he'd taken his fury out on. From the center were four thick, curving lines, and each one led to one of the four major elements. Each line lit up and started glowing with a swirling liquid of either yellow, red, green or blue. At the end of the red line, a bright red flame glowed; for the blue, a teardrop; for the green, a diamond; for the yellow, three swirling lines. Each of the four trainers looked at a different element, then all four looked at each other, blinked a few times, and shrugged.

"Well…That was…Interesting," Ash nodded slowly, "But doesn't this mean we've been doing it wrong the whole time?"

Vic let out one long, wailing scream while Victor drooped, "Guess so…"

"Hmm…" Lance crossed his arms, "Perhaps the whole four-box theory isn't totally inaccurate after all."

"Do you have a plan, Lance?" Vic asked, buzzing around him.

Lance widened his left eye at her and narrowed his right, causing her to shrink back a bit, "The four major elements are fire, wind, water, and earth. And I just noticed that above the doors," he pointed, "Are symbols matching the pattern of the graph on the floor."

"Oh yeah. I didn't see that either," Ash scratched the top of his head, "Heh…Go figure."

"Really. How could an observant little guy like you _possibly_ have missed that?" Victor teased as Ash huffed.

"Anyway…" Lance cleared his throat, "Perhaps if we match the elements to the doors? And…From the look of this floor…" he looked down, "I'd say we have a pretty good idea which elements to shoot for."

"I call fire!" Vic shrieked, throwing her arm up and jumping up and down.

"No way! _I_ call fire!" her twin snapped, growling at her.

"_I_ called it _first_!" she barked back, raising a fist as Victor did.

"You can _both_ shut up," Lance ordered, "Vic can take fire, since she _did_ call it first, baby bro," he grinned as Victor glared evilly at him, "You can take water, since that's what I'm telling you to take. I'll take Earth, since it's my Prophetic element. And seeing as how Ashura here is _such_ a little airhead, he can take wind."

Both Ash and Victor scowled lowly at Lance as he traipsed over beside Vic, "_I'll_ make a deal with you this time," Victor whispered to Ash, "If all four of us get out of here alive, I'll help you kill him."

"Is everybody ready?" Lance looked over his shoulder at V and Ash and to his side at Vic.

"You bet!" Vic cheered.

"All set!" V nodded.

"Uh…Yeah," Ash murmured.

"OK. On three. One…Two…" Lance covered his eyes, "Three!"

All three Ryujin sprang on cue, but the only Ketchum hesitated. He started to jump, but jerked back for a moment. As he started to spring for it, the podium whirled back up, causing him to crash into the wall face-first. He rolled backwards and whined helplessly, trying to ignore the fact that Lance was _screaming_ unrepeatable comments from his cubbyhole below. Vic and V grumbled something Ash couldn't make out, and was partially glad he couldn't.

"I'd suggest somehow running right about now, _kid_!" Lance gnarled, the podium spinning a bit, "Because as soon as I get up there, I'm gonna mangle you into a soccer ball!"

"Oh no, oh no, oh no!" Ash scrambled about, screeching frantically, "AHH!" he backed up to the wall as the podium started sliding upward.

"_There_ you are!" Lance thundered, storming around from Ash's left, "I'm gonna wring your scrawny little neck and burn that goofy cap a' yours! Comere!"

"HELP!" Ash took off, flying out onto the podium with Lance directly behind, "NO! Stay away! WAH!"

Lance grabbed his collar from behind and spun him around, hoisting him up with one arm and aiming his free fist right for his nose, "Don't scream too loud, huh? Don't wanna upset Vic."

"BWAH?! NO! Please!" Ash waved his hands side to side in front of him, "Please don't kill me! Spare me! Spare me!" he crossed his arms in front of his face, "Wait! Wait, please!"

"What? A final request?" he grinned evilly, "Make it quick."

"No! Not a request! But you need four people to get out of here, right? And if you waist me now, how will you get out of here?" he pleaded, whimpering slightly every now and again.

"Ouch…Good point," Victor murmured from behind.

"Erm…" Lance's face tweaked a bit, "_Fine_. But once we're out of here…" he released Ash's collar, sending him flying to the floor, "We're getting it this time, _got it_?!" he gnarled.

"Uh huh…" the other three nodded quickly.

"On three," Victor swallowed as they took their positions, "One."

"Two," Vic closed her eyes.

"Two and a half?" Ash squeaked.

"Three, you little twerp!" Lance snorted and flew forward.

Ash lunged forward, planting his face on the back wall of his box, Victor and Victoria bounced along and slid on their knees into theirs and Lance took a flying leap for it. The sound of grinding metal caused their eyes to open, finding that each box was pitch black. Lance was about to begin wailing when the podium started spinning. They watched carefully as the central platform twisted and dropped at the same time. The floor slowly descended another ten or twelve feet, clanking to a stop. All four trainers peeked out, slowly looking over the edge. Vic screeched giddily and pointed down toward the wall below.

"Look!" she squealed, "A door!" she flew out of her box and landed on her feet, careening toward it.

"Hurrah!" Victor followed quickly, "We did it!"

"Enough of this spinning hell-hole!" Lance lunged down as well, springing toward his siblings.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Ash cried, dangling from the bottom edge of his box, "Woah!" he slipped and fell to the hard floor, landing firmly on his rear, "Wait up!" he scrambled to his feet, grabbed his cap off the floor, and flew to their side.

Lance carefully turned the doorknob and glanced in silently, "Seems OK," he wandered in to a room the size of the one they'd been in just after falling from the tunnel.

Vic, Victor and Ash followed close behind, "Wonder what we do now," Ash looked quietly around the room.

Just as everyone was about to start searching for any ways out, the lights flicked off, leaving them in the pitch blackness, "_Oh_, _come on_…" Victor grumbled.

"What was that?" Ash asked quietly, "Did anybody else hear that?"

"Hear what?" Lance asked, "Ouch! Wall…"

"I didn't hear anything," Vic whispered.

"Me neither," Victor agreed.

"Sounded like…A door…Or something…" Ash put his hand on the wall.

Victor backed up slowly to the wall, accidentally hitting Ash, "Oh! I'm sorry!"

"My hat!" he whined, his cap flipping right off his head, "Where'd it go?!"

His hat went soaring through the air, flying down in front of him, "I didn't hear it hit the floor," Vic murmured, "Did somebody catch it?"

"Not me," the other three answered together.

There was a sudden flop from far below, "Was…That it?" Victor shivered.

"But it sounded so far away," Ash shook.

"Ah, it probably landed somewhere across the room," Lance shrugged, walking forward to find it, "Probably noth-AHHH!"

"Lance?!" Vic shrieked, "Where'd you go?! Where is he?!"

"OW!" came his echo of pain, "That hurt…"

"What hap-AH!"

"Where are-EEH!"

"How come you're-WAH!"

Just after all four of his captives had fallen through the open center of the floor, Giovanni motioned to Bonnie and Clyde to close the gap again. And to focus in on another room…

*^~^*Part 2: End*^~^*

_A/N: Yes, I am evil. Isn't it obvious? Heh...Anyway, I really have no comments, except that I actually might get to stay home and watch "Pocket Monsters Advance Generation" next weekend. *looks around* Please, oh please, oh pleeeaaase! *falls over again* [Usagi: Oh brother. -_-]_

*^~^*Pro_V*^~^*  
.:O=Usagi-chan=O:.  
-=O~The Other Pokemon~O=-  
**Next:** Special Edition: Laborious Labyrinth: Part 3 of 7.  
_TAA Pokemon Of The Month: March 2003: The Tree Gecko Pokemon Jupitol_


	3. Misty plus Bugs equals Very Bad

Laborious Labyrinth ~ Part 3 of 7  
By: Pro_V  
_A/N: Insanity reigns supreme...That's all I have to say...Bye-bye...*snickers and runs off* [Usagi: That...Seriously frightens me...]_

Pikachu woke slowly, finding it very dark and hard to breathe. He shivered slightly, as he couldn't sense his Pikapi anywhere around him. But he _did_ sense Pikachupi. The trick was finding where she could have been. He tried to stand, but found himself unable, like something was on top of him. His eyes narrowed and his tail stiffened.

"Pika…_CHIU_!" he bit down for all he was worth.

"_Yeow_!" someone screamed, springing off of him and rubbing her side, "Pikachu! _Why_ did you do that?!"

"Pikachupi!" Pikachu cried in great relief, "Pikachupi, Pikapi pikachu!"

Misty looked slowly about the room, spotting Brock, Tracey, Richie, Jason and Lisle sprawled on the floor around her, "I don't know where Ash is, Pikachu. It doesn't look like he fell in here with us."

"Pikapi, pi-pi-pika chu…" the Electric Mouse sniffled.

"Don't worry, Pikachu. We'll find him, I promise," she carefully inched to Tracey's side, "Tracey…" she nudged him, "Tracey, wake up."

"Wha…?" the Pokemon Watcher groaned, sitting up stiffly, "What happened?"

"If I could answer that question, I'd me more than happy to," she murmured, looking upwards as Tracey began shaking everyone awake, "And I really wish I could," she thought silently.

"Owwie…" Lisle whined, sitting up and holding her head, "That really hurt."

"Oh man…Did it ever," Richie moaned, searching about for his hat.

"Where are we anyway?" Jason asked, looking up, down, left and right.

"There's where we fell in up there," Brock pointed up to a hole in the wall, which then crashed shut.

"Well that's not good," Jason grunted, crossing his arms.

"Pika-pi-ka…" Pikachu agreed, nodding once.

"Anybody have any idea how we get out of here?" Lisle questioned, rubbing the back of her head.

"Not a clue," Jason slouched, flopping his chin down on the floor.

"Has anybody seen my hat?" Richie inquired quietly from the side of the room.

"Geez…" Misty sighed, scowled, and crossed her arms, "You're just as bad as Ash…Is it _really_ a good time to be worried about your stupid hat?"

"My hat is _not_ stupid," he scowled back at her, causing her to sweatdrop, "I _need_ to find that hat."

Lisle snickered quietly, "Not _that_ was more along the lines of _Morty_ than Ash."

"Togi! Togi-togi-togi-pii!" Togepi chirped, jumping up and down beside the opposite wall.

"Togepi!" Misty hopped up and ran toward her Pokemon, jumping over Brock while doing so, "My poor, sweet baby Togepi!"

"Togi-pii!" she cried, "Togi-tog-togi-togi!" she waved one arm at the wall.

"What does she see, Misty?" Lisle stumbled slightly as she stood up.

"My hat!" Richie ran over beside Misty and looked up on the wall, "It's on the wall!"

"But how and why is it up there?" Brock steadied Lisle before getting slapped and being told to keep his distance.

Misty herself looked up at the wall, then suddenly shooting up straight. Her skin began to crawl, her heart nearly stopped, but nearly bounced out her chest at the same time. Togepi's eyes widened, as did Richie's, and Misty finally let out one, long, wailing, never-wavering scream.

"_It's a BUG_!" she thundered, scaring Pikachu away to hide behind Jason, "_A BUG A BUG A BUG-A BUG-A BUG_!" she scampered toward the opposite wall, but slid quickly to a halt, "_ANOTHER BUG_!"

Everyone looked around to where she was screaming about, and noticed the walls seemed to be blotched out by a white haze of some sort. Jason reached around into his back pocket and pulled out a wide silver lighter, popping it open and flicking it to life. Misty let out another of her piercing screams, as the walls were literally _covered_ in a sticky white webbing. Every few feet there rested a Spinarak of a different color and size, none of which moved, but all of which gleamed in the tiny bit of firelight from the lighter that was now starting to die. Jason flicked it shut when he noticed a small window up in the roof, allowing just enough light to see each other, but mostly nothing else; not even the walls.

"Why…Do I get the feeling…Giovanni had this planned the entire time?" Lisle questioned, quickly whacking Brock away as he attempted to inch closer to her.

"What_ever_ could have given you that idea?" Richie questioned lightly, plucking his hat from the webs and brushing it off.

"But…Look at all these _Bugs_," Misty whimpered, clutching Pikachu and Togepi, "They're all so ugly, so slimy, so disgusting, so-"

"Metal," Tracey put in suddenly, tapping one of the Spinarak on the wall with the end of his pencil, "They're all made of metal."

Brock stepped over and tugged on one, yanking it from the wall and examining it, "Yeah, he's right. It's a heavy metal."

"What's that by your feet there, Tracey?" Jason asked, motioning to the very bottom of the wall.

Tracey bent down and tapped this with his pencil as well, "Looks like a clock radio…" Lisle muttered, cocking an eyebrow.

Jason shrugged and pulled two of the metal Spinarak from the wall beside him, "Well, I guess we'd better-"

"What's that noise?" Richie interrupted, looking all around.

Pikachu, who was holding one of the smallest Spinarak, flipped his ears about in every direction, "Pika…Chu…Pika!" he looked quickly downward.

"The floor, Pikachu?" Misty questioned, "It's coming from the floor?"

As Pikachu nodded repeatedly, the once soft whirring noise began to grow louder. The floor suddenly jolted and began to shake, slowly sliding apart in the center. Togepi hopped the break between the two moving halves and dove into Misty's backpack to hide whilst the humans and Pikachu attempted to remain standing. Lisle backed away, only to find that the floor was continuously moving toward the wall.

"What the-" Jason glanced to the floor, his back against the wall as half of the floor crept closer, "A f-f-fan?"

Misty and Lisle screeched and latched onto each other, as below them spun a fan the entire size of the room. As the space between the wall and the edge of the floor began to grow smaller, everyone was forced to try and remain standing instead of being lifted into the air by the tremendous rush of wind. It didn't last long, sadly enough, and Pikachu was the first to be thrown upward, flailing and crying aimlessly. Misty and Lisle were next, followed by Tracey, who watched his sketchbook and pencil precede him along the way, then Brock, and finally Jason. They each kicked a bit, attempting to find _something_ to hold on to, but none of them were in a good position to even try to grab a Spinarak on the wall. Those who had been holding some of them dropped them upon being lifted up, watching them crash down and onto the grate over the fan, only to watch the thin metal barrier give slightly under their weight, drooping down toward the spinning blades of the fan. After a few more moments of "flight", if that's what you wanted to call it, everyone was suddenly bounced to a halt, caught in midair by something sticky and rubbery. They winced slightly, then opened their eyes carefully, sighing a bit before Misty began to scream and squirm about, causing everyone else to shake as well. She pulled and yanked and kicked and squawked, only to be elasticized back by the white goo she was attached to.

"My God…" Jason murmured, forcing himself to draw his rubber-encased hand down to look at it.

"More webs…" Tracey shuttered, as he was stuck stomach-first to the white slop, looking up into the top of the room, "They're _everywhere_."

He looked up to the ceiling, finding web after web covering every wall. About every ten feet there was another huge web like the one they were attached to, creating a wall of stickiness. The fan below then had slowed and was now coming to a complete halt, causing them to half grunt/half sigh.

"_Dis_…_Gusting_…" Lisle murmured, attempting to pry herself out of the webbing, "This is _so_ disgusting!"

"No fake!" Misty screeched, "Heeeelp!"

"Shh!" Richie ordered, finally detaching the back of his head from the web, "Misty, calm down!"

"Calm down?! _Calm down_?! How do you expect me to _calm down_?!" she flipped, flailing once again.

"Come on, Misty, stop it!" Tracey begged, "You're making me queasy!"

"These stupid _Bugs_ are making _me_ queasy!"

"All right! Enough, enough, enough!" Jason puffed, waving his hands as well as he could, "Calm down, all of you. And chill out. The only way we're going to get out of here is to find a door or something. The only way to do that is to get off of this web. So…Any ideas?"

The room remained silent for a moment, everyone stuck in their original spots, attempting to device a plan to get away from the white glue that was suspending them in the middle of the air. Pikachu was Pika-ing away and Togepi was grinning and chirping a few feet away from him, her head poking out of Misty's bag.

"I…Am at a _total_ loss…" Lisle finally admitted after a few more prolonged moments of silence.

"Yeah, same here…" Brock murmured, sighing loudly.

"Great…_Just_ great…" Richie snorted, eyes narrowing.

"We've gotta do something!" Misty shrieked, fluttering about yet again, and serving to detach from her waist up from the webs, "Huh? AHH! Help, I'm falling! Help, help, help, _help_!"

"Misty, stop!" Brock wailed, jolted up and down, side to side, before getting all but his hair detached, "OW! Oh…Man…Ow! Ow-ow…Ow-ow-_ow_! Oh…God…This…_Hurts_!"

"Pika-_chu_!" Pikachu cried whilst being flung down to the floor and planting his face on the grate beneath him, "Pika…Pika cha…" he groaned, looking up with a screen pattern reddening his face.

"Togi! Pi!" Togepi grinned, cracking Pikachu in the back of the head as she was thrown from Misty's pack.

"Misty, come on!" Richie begged, suspended only by the shoulders of his shirt, "You're going to get us hurt!"

"Misty, what would Ash think?!" Tracey swung back to front, held up by the souls of his shoes.

"He'd think about the same thing I am right about now! _GROSS_!" Misty screamed, attempting to dislodge her legs, "Get me out of here!"

"This…Is really painful…" Lisle murmured, hanging loose aside from her kneecaps.

Jason slipped off, but was shocked still when the throat of his cloak caught, still imbedded in the webs, "Guys…A little…Help here."

"Pika!" Pikachu scampered over and hopped up onto the Elite First's leg, scrambling up to his shoulder and attempting to get the double knot out of the tie at his throat, "Pika…Chu…Pika…Chu…" he glared as it didn't budge and, thoroughly fed up with it, chomped down on it, chewing straight through it.

"Floor approaching at dramatic speed," Jason whimpered, crashing down onto the grate, "Yeow!"

Brock and Lisle were next to fall, one on top of the other, and Lisle made it clear she didn't like the way Brock was sitting, and slapped him away. Richie pried one shoulder loose, then the other, and fell down beside them. Tracey stretched and plucked his book and pencil from the web before also being released, and Misty finally flailed enough that she too fell. She planted the very top of her head on the grate and wailed aimlessly.

"Well…_That_ was entertaining," Lisle snorted, glaring upward, "Hey, Jason, you left your cloak up there…"

"Forget it," he grunted, crossing his arms and shivering; without his cloak, he didn't feel like himself, "I don't care how freaky it feels without it…It feels weirder being stuck to that stuff."

"That's strange…" Tracey murmured, tucking his pad and pencil in his pack and staring downward at the timer-like numbers near the floor, "It's different."

"What is?" Richie questioned, plucking web from his pants.

"The number on this counter here is different. Only by three, but still," he crossed his arms, looking oddly perplexed.

"Hey, he's right," Brock scratched his head, "That's really weird."

"Do me a favor, Pikachu?" Jason looked down at the Electric Mouse, "Hop up on one of the Spinarak stuck to the walls."

"Pika!" Pikachu saluted and jumped up on top of one of the biggest ones, "Chu!"

"There, now look," Jason pointed to the counter, "Now it's off by sixteen."

"And Pikachu weighs thirteen pounds," Misty put in quietly, "I remember that from his last check-up. Jason, how much does your cloak weigh?"

"About three pounds, I guess…" he shrugged, "Enough to be there, but not enough to keep you warm when you're up at six in the morning doing your stupid exercise drills because Eevy thinks you gained two pounds…"

"So _that's_ what it is. It's a scale," Richie pointed out, "Thirteen and three makes sixteen, and without Pikachu or Jason's cloak on here, that counter is sixteen marks off."

"But what kind of purpose would _that_ serve?" Lisle asked, crossing her arms and cocking her head.

The room again fell to silence, then Misty perked up, "Like the hatch outside!" she remembered, loud and echoing through the whole room, "Remember when Onix opened the gate to get down here when we first came in? He activated it with his weight! Only this one starts that crazy fan instead of opening a trap door!"

"Sounds like you're feeling better…" Tracey murmured, tapping the scale numbers with his toe.

"I just want out of this stupid room! Too many _Bugs_," she shook her head slowly, "So…Now that we've figured that out…What, exactly, do we do next…?"

"Uh…"

"Um…"

"Eh…"

"Pika…"

"Togi…"

"Good question…"

"Well, we haven't exactly had a good look around here," Jason put in, "So let's see what we can light up. Sapphire, I choose you!" he called, throwing a Poke'Ball forward, "Come on out and light this place up so we can see!"

The Poke'Ball hit the ground and rolled slowly back toward its owner's feet, as it rolled with the bow of the grate. Jason's eyes nearly fell right out of the sockets; why wasn't his beloved blue Rapidash coming out?!

"What goes here, huh?!" he flipped, grabbing the Poke'Ball and shaking it furiously, "_Sapphire_! Come on, girl! Come out! _Please_!"

"Oh boy…" Lisle shuttered, "What's wrong with this picture?"

Jason collapsed to his knees, wailing uncontrollably, "Ionizing radiation can do that…" Tracey murmured quietly, "I learned that from Professor Oak…"

"Don't get technical, kid! Just tell me what to do to fix it!" Jason shrieked, stomping over to him and throwing the Poke'Ball up in his face.

"…Nothing," Tracey answered simply, standing straight, "There's nothing you can do except hope when you get away from the pulses, the damage isn't permanent."

"Bwah?!" the Alternate Color Master gagged, "You gotta be kidding me! I can't just sit here worried about her like that!"

"Then don't. Worry about all of them, since it affects all electronic devices, which means _all_ of your Poke'Balls, Poke'Dex, Poke'Gear and cell phones are useless," Tracey sweatdropped as Jason's face slowly began to take on a more scarlet tinge.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me!" he growled, reconnecting Sapphire's Poke'Ball to his belt, "Fine…We'll do things the hard way…" he dug into his pocket and pulled out his lighter, flicking it on.

"That little thing won't do any good," Richie sighed, "We'll have to guess our way out of here."

"Be still," the Elite First puffed, waving his hand at the flame, "My Prophetic element is Wind; I can do nice things to flames."

Slow but sure, the fire began to rise and widen, becoming a veritable torch. Everyone else looked on, then around, as it brightened the walls. There was a line of those metal Spinarak all the way around the room, then the web they'd been stuck to, then another line of Spinarak, then another web. Five lines of Spinarak, five webs, one very faintly lit exit all the way at the top, only about a foot from the roof. Each of the sticky white webs had a round break in it, which was a definite clue that this had been planned.

"It appears to me…" Lisle began as the fire slowly began to shrink back to its original size, "That we're supposed to get all the way up there and through that opening."

"And how, pray tell, do we go about that?" Misty questioned, tucking Togepi inside her bag; somehow, she'd managed to fall asleep, "There are _webs_ and _Bugs_ in between us and them. And even if there weren't, it's _way_ up there!"

"The fan," Richie murmured quietly, attracting everyone's attention, "We could…Use the fan to get up there."

Misty nearly keeled over, but Brock stepped up, "But there are webs between us and the exit, if that's even really what that is. And the breaks in those webs are at different positions. There's no way we could get from break to break without getting stuck in the gunk above or without the fan stopping."

"How about we just have Jason take us up there?" Misty grinned hopefully.

"Sorry," Jason shrugged, Pikachu perched on his shoulder, "I'm not strong enough to lift so much weight."

"Is that an _insult_?" she questioned, eyes narrowing slowly.

"Eh…" the Elite First twitched as Pikachu snickered, "No! I meant that I can't take all of us up and once! And if I was up there, I wouldn't be able to reach you all the way down here!" he laughed frantically, rubbing the back of his head.

He sighed thankfully as she looked in the opposite direction at Tracey, "I thought so," the Pokemon Watcher murmured, turning back to everyone else, "There's a scale on every level."

"So _what_?" Lisle snorted, drooping a bit, "That still doesn't change the fact that we have no way of knowing how much weight it takes to get up there, nor does it help us in solving how to get to the top."

"Yes it does," he contradicted, "Here, I'll show you," he pulled out his sketchpad and pencil.

"_That_ thing…" Jason muttered as he peered down at it, "That book of yours comes in handy a lot more than one would think."

"I've noticed," Tracey sighed, flipping to a clean sheet, "Say this is rectangle is this room. The straight lines are the webs and the waving lines are the lines of Spinarak. On each webbing level, there's a scale like the one down here. And if you look at the edges of the webs," he pointed upward, "The pieces that connect _to_ the wall go _inside_ the wall. That tells me that the webs are connected to the scales and the scales to the fan."

"Uh huh…" Richie nodded slowly, "And this helps _how_?"

"I'm getting to that," Tracey waved his pencil at Richie's nose, "Those scales, from what I see, are a special type of scale. They're called "pigment scales". They were designed by Professor Nanba before he joined Team Rocket and are some of the most advanced Pokemon equipment out there. Professor Oak had one in his lab. Each Pokemon species has an average weight used to determine the ideal health of the race. What the pigment scales do is you can set the monitor for a certain species and then put a Pokemon on it. Depending on the weight of your Pokemon compared to the average, the color of the scale's numbers will change. Red, orange and yellow for too low, green for right on, and blue, indigo and violet for too high. If you watch the numbers as we step around, they fade from green to yellow and sometimes to orange."

"And since Nanba works for Team Rocket now, he'd have no problem in figuring out how to take the species dial out. Or how to replace it with a dial to set the exact weight used to open the hatch and to turn on this fan," Misty puffed, finishing off what she knew was coming.

"Exactly."

"Hey, I just realized something," Richie crossed his arms, looking upward at the webbing, "If that fan turns back on again, it could fold Jason's cloak up and block the opening to the next level. That stupid cloak could trap us in here!"

"_Great_…_Just_ what we needed to hear," Lisle snorted, drooping significantly.

"Guess we should get it down then," Jason jumped up and caught onto the very end of his cloak.

"Wait!" Tracey shouted, causing everyone to look back on him, "If you pull that down here now, you'll start the fan. We'll wind up back on those webs again."

Jason blinked twice, then looked side to side, "Hey, Pikachu?"

"Pika?"

"Do me another favor and jump up on one of the Spinarak again?"

"Pika-chu!" the mouse agreed and lunged on top of a purple Spinarak on the wall, "Pika!"

Jason nodded, then attempted once more to pull his cloak from the webbing, "Great. It's stuck like glue," he grunted and hopped up, only serving to make the cloak into a swing, "AHH! Well, _this_ was smart…"

He hung there a moment before Richie, Brock and Tracey started pulling him down. There was a loud thud, then a series of shouts, all of which left the Elite First laid out on the floor on top of the other three guys. The cloak slowly floated down and draped over them.

"That…Was evil," Richie snorted, shoving everyone off.

"Boys can be _so stupid_," Misty grumbled, "No offence, Pikachu."

"Pi…"

"Are all of you all right?" Lisle questioned, tilting her head.

Brock shot up and over to her, "I'm always all right as long as I'm around a pretty girl like you."

"Knock it off, _Brock_," Misty hissed, yanking him away by the ear and out of Lisle's reach before she could strangle him, "Before _she_ decides to knock _you_ off."

"Now then," Jason brushed off, pinning the neck of his cloak at his throat with his Elite 4 pin, "We've got to get through that opening in the web," he pointed.

"Yeah, but…How?" Misty asked quietly, restraining Brock, "That break is too small and the fan won't stay on long enough for us to go up one by one."

"Guess we go up as a group then," Richie murmured.

"Do we _have_ to?" Lisle snorted, "That opening is _way_ too tight. I _refuse_ to get any closer to _any_ of you than I have to," she crossed her arms and nodded firmly.

"Do you want to get out of here?" Jason questioned, crossing his arms as well.

"Of course I do!" she barked, turning to him and shooting the filthiest of looks.

"Then you have to," he puffed, dragging her over by the elbow.

"Eeh!" she shrieked, jamming her way out from between Brock and Jason and over between Misty and Tracey, "You have _no_ compassion _what_soever for the opposite gender, _do you_?"

"…Not really, no," he shrugged, then looked over at Pikachu, "OK, Pikachu. On three, you jump back over here on Richie's shoulder."

"Pi-pi-pika!" Pikachu saluted, crouching carefully to prepare for a good jump.

"One," Jason yanked Lisle back as she attempted to back slowly away.

"Two," Lisle slapped Brock as hard as she could (Need I explain _why_?).

"Pika!" Pikachu launched out onto Richie's shoulder and held as tight as he could.

The whirring of the fan was slow at first, then became faster and louder. In his office, Sakaki couldn't seem to get over the horrible laughing fit this was giving him. Even Bonnie and Clyde, who'd been trained to be silent except when spoken to, were forced to suppress a giggle or two. Once all six of those in that room had been swept up and through into the next level of the webbing, the fan slowly came to a stop. Three humans fell one way, the other three the opposite, and Pikachu was thrown all the way up into the next web. After numerous contortions, they managed to pry him off. He clung to Misty as everyone attempted to keep their shoes from sticking to the web below them.

"This is _so_ gross!" Misty thundered, lifting one foot, then the other, "We'll never get up there like this!"

"Sure we will!" Richie grinned stupidly, "It'll just take a while is all!"

She stared at him for a minute or two, then grunted and stomped off toward the wall. Tracey used his sketchpad as a notebook and added up some figures, telling whoever was nearest to the Spinarak he wanted to take it from the wall. They continued this way for a while before the counter hit nine-hundred thirty-two and turned to yellow.

"That's it," the Pokemon Watcher pried himself from the webbing beneath him, "We only need one more pound."

"But there's no way one of us could get one of the one-pound Spinarak and get all the way back here before the fan started up again," Misty murmured.

"And there's no Spinarak close enough for Pikachu to stand on and jump from, and no way to move any of them over here, because they all have different bases," Brock added.

"Pi…Kachu…" Pikachu sighed quietly.

"I could…Try and run," Jason put in.

"Eh…?" Richie cocked his head, "What do you mean?"

"Jason acquired his Rapidash's speed upon bonding with her," Lisle answered, "He can run just as fast as Sapphire can now. Maybe he could run down and run back."

"But with the webs here, it'd hinder even _his_ speed," Brock grunted, "We have to find some way to get something off, then bring it back, like we did with Pikachu."

"Maybe we can throw Pikachu up to the next level, then let him fall back when Jason makes he way over to us," Misty suggested.

"But if Pikachu hits a piece of web, he won't be able to come back. And if he doesn't have something to hold on to or to stand on, he won't be able to make a delayed re-entry," Richie groaned, slapping his own forehead.

"Well, we've gotta try _something_!" Misty flipped, stomping as best as she could, "If we don't get up to the top level here _sometime_ this _year_, we're gonna be in deep trouble!"

"Pikachu," Richie tugged him out of Misty's grasp, "Would you be willing to take a chance to try and get us out of here?"  


"Pi…" Pikachu looked around at everyone for a second or two, then looked back, "Pika!" he agreed quickly, "Pikapi, pi-pi pikachu pika!"

"Great," Jason nodded, "I'll get over there and get ready to pull the Spinarak down. You get ready and as soon as I pick it up, toss Pikachu up through the next opening as best as you can without letting him hit the web. Hopefully I'll be able to make it back before he lands again," he tromped slowly across to the opposite end of the room.

"Ready, Pikachu?" Brock patted his forehead as he nodded, "Be careful now."

"Chu…" Pikachu looked upward and crouched down on Richie's arm, "Chu-pika…"

"Ready?" Jason put both hands on the Spinarak, "_Come on, Ho-oh. You and the Prophecy have never failed me before; don't do it now_," he pulled back slightly, "Now!"

"Good luck, Pikachu!" Richie swung his arm up, letting Pikachu lung upward, straight up through the break in the webs.

By the time Richie even turned back to look at the Elite First, he was already less than three feet away. Pikachu flipped over and rocketed down to them headfirst. He landed on Lisle's back and the fan started to spin. It took a few extra seconds to detach them from the webs, but there was no mistaking the fact they had been lifted up and through to the next level. They fell apart, landing out on the webs once more.

"Get _off_!" Lisle roared, slapping Brock all the way across to the opposite wall.

"Ow…" he grunted, slipping down and planting his face in the webbing.

Once again, they were forced to gather their numbers, do their figures, and throw Pikachu up through the breech to ascend. And one more time, after this, making it so they had passed through four web layers. They were now to the next-to-last layer of webs. The next they'd pass through would be the floor that the "exit" was on, if, in fact, that's what it really was. They each looked up, then down at the levels they'd passed through. They sighed and fought their way over to Tracey, who was still figuring the numbers.

"No matter what we add, it doesn't seem to get us any closer," he murmured, scribbling away, "What _haven't_ we tried…"

"We've used every combination we can think of," Brock put in quickly, crossing his arms, "But we can't even get it near the orange, let alone the yellow."

"Hey, I've got an idea," Lisle trudged her way to the wall, "Guys, do me a favor, and help me get all but one of the smallest down."

Misty handed two of the one-pound Spinarak off to Pikachu, who sat them down, then handed him the second two. She handed him all five of the two-pound weights, two at a time and then one, then all five of the five-pound weights, these one at a time. Brock and Tracey pulled all five ten-pound Spinarak down, then Richie and Brock brought down all five of those that weighed in at twenty pounds a piece. Tracey watched the scale count all the way up into the yellow zone, all with that one Spinarak remaining on the walls.

"So _that_'s what it was…All of us, plus all our gear, plus all these Spinarak come out to one-thousand seventy-six pounds, counting that one on the wall. The last layer must have been programmed to accept the total combined weight," Tracey acknowledged, then looked to Lisle, "Nice thinking."

"Hah! Maybe I'll get to be the Minor Mistress to the Ecruteak City Gym sooner or later after all!" she laughed crazily, causing everyone to sweatdrop.

"But we won't be able to throw Pikachu this time," Brock pointed upward, "That ceiling is a lot lower and a lot harder than the webbing was."

"Yeah, you're right," Richie nodded, then sighed long and hard, "Guess it's time for a new strategy."

"Pika! Chu!" Pikachu scampered up and sat on Brock's head, "Pika-pika-pikachu! Pika-cha-chu-pika!" he waved the V for victory above his head.

"You…Want to try it anyway…" Brock looked up at him.

"Pika-chu!"

"But you could get hurt, Pikachu!" Misty contradicted, "We can't let you do that!"

"Pika…" he looked down at her, "Pikachupi, Pikapi pika. Pi-chu-pika Pikacha. Pi-pi-pikachu, Pikachupi? Pika-chu-cha-pika?!"

"That made…No sense to me…" Jason shook his head slowly.

Misty began to facefault, but, fearing getting her head stuck in the webs, refrained, "He said that Ash needs our help, and so does Eevy. And that we shouldn't leave them, because they wouldn't give up on us."

"Right," Richie nodded, placing Pikachu on his arm, "Are you ready, Jason?"

"You bet," Jason took the last Spinarak in both hands, "Go for it, Pikachu!"

Pikachu flipped and tumbled about in the air, flapping his arms frantically to stay suspended, but it did no good. The throw and jump had been too high and his back crashed against the hard roof. He screeched and began to fall, but Jason was hardly halfway to the rest of the humans as he neared them too quickly.

"Jump, Jason!" Lisle screeched, "You're not going to make it!"

"Jumping is _not_ my strong point, Lisle!" Jason barked, lunging for all he was worth.

He was _just_ able to catch onto them before the fan turned on hard enough to lift them, but he wasn't in a good position to hold on, as he didn't get a good enough grip on Brock and Richie's backpacks. He slipped off and barely caught on to the strap of Tracey's, which the Pokemon Watcher almost dropped. They whipped up, cracked their heads on the ceiling, then rolled off to the side, tangling themselves deep in the webs. Jason slipped off when they started to roll, and now laid on the web, his arms crossed under his chin and his legs fallen through the break. Everyone remained motionless for a few moments before there was faint movement deep in the webbing. Misty pushed one arm from the web, then the other, then pushed as hard as she could, pulling from her waist up out of the white gunk and coughing it up.

"Oh…My _GOD_!" she spat, hacking web out of her mouth, "That…Was…_SO DISGUSTING_!"

A few moments later, Lisle rolled over as forcefully as she was able, covered from head to toe on her front and back with white stings. Richie pulled his face and right hand from the webs, pulled off his hat, and dumped a whole pile of web out of it. Brock used the web itself to yank his feet out, then had to pull his hands out, and Tracey blew his hair from his face, reached down, grabbed his headband, and yanked it from the gunk as well. Pikachu kicked and muffled nasty Pikachu comments, as only his tail and feet were exposed. Jason reached over and pulled his tail, plucking him from his constraints. The mouse sighed and took a good deep breath.

"Finally…The last level…" Lisle breathed thankfully.

"Yeah…" Richie nearly collapsed at the thought.

"Guys…" Tracey whimpered slightly, pointing toward the opening they thought they were to exit from, "Guys…Guys! Guys, look!"

Everyone turned to look, including Jason, who had to pry his face from the web, "Another fan?!" he bugged, "You gotta be kidding me!"

Nope, sorry. Not kidding. Another fan spun in the round opening on the end of the room. Though it was going slowly, its bladed edges would have no problem taking a hand or an arm. Everyone stood quietly, though the occasional snivel could be heard.

"Great…_Just_ what we need," Richie snorted, then sludging over to Jason, "Come on, guys. Let's get him up here. Then we'll figure this out."

Brock, Tracey and Lisle joined him as quickly as they could. Tracey took Jason's right arm, Richie the right side of his belt, Brock the left of his belt, and Lisle his left arm. They started tugging as hard as they could, but he wouldn't budge. That stupid cloak was stuck tight. _Again_. Misty started over to help, but paused suddenly, turning slowly around to look to the wall opposite the door. She screamed suddenly and backed up quickly.

"Guys! I think we've got a slightly more _immediate_ problem here!" she cried, causing the others to stop and look back as well.

On the wall loomed a large, still shadow. It then began to move as the something that projected it descended from the ceiling. Misty scampered frantically behind Brock and peeked out as a giant orange spider crawled effortlessly off the ceiling, onto the wall, and down to the webbing.

"An Ariados!" Lisle released Jason and joined Misty, "What do we do?!"

"Pikachu!" Misty looked down at him, "Hurry and use Thunderbolt!"

"Pika! _Chu_!" Pikachu hopped forward and attempted to launch his attack, but nothing came, "Pika?!"

"That's not going to work!" Tracey was still attempting to pull Jason up, "Ionizing radiation stops _all_ electric currents! Pikachu can't let out any sort of Electric attack!"

"Oh great!" Richie covered his eyes, "We're doomed!"

"Aria!" Ariados thundered forward, aiming directly at the back the Elite First's head, "Ariados!"

"Holy-!" Jason ducked down, forcing his arms up to cross them over his head, "This is _not good_!"

"Ari!"

"Pi…Ka…Chu!"

"Ar-Aria!"

Jason felt the web bow and looked quickly upward. Pikachu and sprung up just as Ariados had and tackled into the spider with all his strength. The spider flew backwards, rolling right on down and through the opening he was hanging through, and tore through the web beneath it, then the next, then the next, then the next, and on the very last one was stuck fast on his back, flailing aimlessly and screeching.

"Great shot, Pikachu!" Lisle clapped, "You creamed him!"

"Thank you, Pikachu," Jason patted his head, "Thanks."

"Pi-ka," Pikachu grinned, "Pika-pika-pikachu. Pi-ka-pika-chu."

"What did he say?" Jason looked up at Misty as they resumed pulling him up.

"He says you can pay him back with a bottle of ketchup when we get out of this," she answered.

Just after he'd been pulled free, Jason facefaulted, "Now…What do we do about _that_?" he questioned, pointing to the fan.

"It seems to have started spinning slower now that you're up here," Tracey noted, "The more the weight, the slower it must turn. See?" he pointed to the walls, "The webs go through the wall here too, but if you look, these aren't pulled down, but to the sides, toward the fan. The more weight applied to the web, the slower it goes."

"So the more of us that go through the fan, the faster the thing will spin," Richie grumbled, "We'll be chopped to bits."

"Not necessarily," Brock pointed out, "Jason might be able to make it through last without getting hit."

"_Might_," Jason enunciated, "_Might_ is the keyword there. It all depends on how fast the increments are."

"Well…Let's give it a try before Ariados figures his way back up here," Lisle murmured, pushing her way to the fan, "Misty should go first, since she's the smallest."

"Thanks a lot…" the redhead murmured, stepping up onto the lip of the fan, "Here we go. Hang on in there, Togepi!" she ducked down and scampered between two of the blades, flopping to her knees on the other side, "OK! Lisle, come on through."

"Oh man…" Lisle squeaked, "Look how much faster it got. _Please_ don't let me get turned into a tossed salad," she too stepped up onto the lip, ducking quickly between the blades, "All right! Tracey, you next!"

"Me?" Tracey whimpered as Brock and Richie shoved him forward, "I wanna go back to Pallet Town now," he whined, jumping through and rolling a few feet away, "Eech…OK, Brock. Now you."

Brock stepped up and slipped through on his back, skidding across the floor and smacking into Tracey, "Sorry, Trace…" his grinned nervously as the Pokemon Watcher glared at him, "Richie, let's go!"

"I don't wanna do this…" Richie whimpered, inching forward, "I can't do this."

"You've got to," Jason contradicted, crossing his arms, "If you don't, neither of us will ever get out of here. I'll have lost Medira and you'll have lost Kayla, and we'll both have lost everyone else."

"Pika-cha," Pikachu agreed from Jason's shoulder, nodding quickly.

Richie sighed and tripped over, throwing his pack, coat and hat through first, "Here goes nothing then," he held his breath and scampered forward on his hands and knees, just barely missing the blade coming down behind him.

"Oh great," Jason slowly lowered his arms to his sides, "That thing's spinning _way_ to fast now. There's no way I'll get through."

"Pi…" Pikachu looked down at him and patted his head, "Pika-chua."

"Yes, I _should_ try, at least," he bent to one knee and shut his eyes, "Get on my back, Pikachu, under my cloak. It'll give you a little bit more protection."

"Pika…Pikachu," the Electric Mouse nodded and ducked down around under the shoulder of the forest green cape, "Pika!"

"OK. Here we go then!"

"You can do it, Jason!" Misty called.

The tug of the webbing offered a bit more resistance than planned and nearly caused Jason to fumble to a stop, but he forced himself along and dove for the opening, slipping out between two of the blades and down onto the floor. He slid to a stop between Lisle and Tracey, his arms folded in front of his face, and sat there. Pikachu flopped out from under his cloak and sighed, then stood and turned to him.

"Jason, are you all right?" Tracey asked, nudging his shoulder, "Jason?"

There was a long, unnerving pause, "Never again…" he sat slowly up, propping his head up with his hand, "Never again will I ever curse Entei for my power."

Everyone snickered and sweatdropped as he struggled to his feet and brushed webs from his shirt and pants. They looked around slightly, then there was a loud click and they were jolted slightly. Each focused their sights quickly to the floor, which was slowly pulling off the far wall, sliding toward the one near the fan. They turned quickly to the wall with the fan and watched a metal panel crash down and block it off. They spun back and looked down to what the floor was uncovering; _more webs_.

"We're gonna get scraped off!" Lisle stepped back, pressing herself against the wall.

"Help!" Richie was first to slide off, down into the webbing, "It's like quicksand!" he flailed, reaching for Brock and Tracey, who reached for him, but were also shoved off.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no!" Misty scampered side to side, "What do we do, what do we do?!"

Jason swallowed hard, looking down at the three who had already fallen into the webbing, "…We fall," he murmured, his heels finally slipping from the edge as he too was dumped down into the white abyss.

Lisle and Misty latched onto each other and screamed, "Togi?" Togepi peeked out, saw what was happening, then dove quickly back in, "Pi…!" she whimpered, quivering.

"Some help _you_ are!" Misty snapped as she and Lisle were pushed into the webs, "_GROSS_!"

"Not again!" Lisle struggled to stay above the surface.

"Whatever you do…" Tracey murmured, "Do _not_ look up."

"Huh?" ignoring the direct order, everyone looked to the ceiling, "WHAT?!"

The ceiling had also been uncovered, revealing Spinarak, Weedle and Caterpie, all of which were alive and glaring down at them. They all started spitting silk and webs, covering those below them and pushing them deeper into the webs. When the Bugs had run out of webbing, those they'd managed to conceal fought their way to the top, forcing themselves out to stand on the top of the webs.

"We've got to do something!" Lisle shrieked.

"We'll suffocate if we don't!" Misty cried, covering her eyes.

"But there's nothing we _can_ do!" Richie looked frantically about.

"The fan is already closed off!" Brock fought to pull his right foot up.

"There's no way we could get out of here!" Tracey grabbed onto Jason's cloak to straighten himself out.

"Quiet, all of you!" Jason motioned, silencing everyone, "Do you hear that?" he looked carefully side to side, then put his hand on the wall, "We're moving."

"W-We're falling!" Misty flipped, clutching Pikachu.

"Pi…Ka…" Pikachu gagged, pleading for air.

Jason fought away from the wall as an opening appeared. As they dropped farther, he realized it was another fan. It pulled in most of the webbing beneath them, then was also closed off by a metal panel. They looked up when they heard a Weedle shriek, then screaming for themselves. The webbing the Bug-types were sitting on was falling as well. They ducked down, only to realize they were now dropping twice as fast and that the Bugs were approaching at a wicked speed. A few moments later, they were sandwiched between two thick layers of webbing, and a few moments after _that_, there was a loud crash as they connected with a hard floor.

*^~^*Part 3: End*^~^*

_A/N: Misty, I feel your pain. [Usagi: Suuure ya' do.] I do! I can't stand bugs or spiders. Or little kids. [Usagi: o_O OK, then why is Spin-chan on your back?] [Spinarak: Yeah, why?] ...I...I...Spin-chan's different. =_= So there. [Spinarak/Usagi: Ugh.]_

*^~^*Pro_V*^~^*  
.:O=Usagi-chan=O:.  
-~+Spin-chan+~-  
-=O~The Other Pokemon~O=-  
**Next:** Special Edition: Laborious Labyrinth: Part 4 of 7.  
_TAA Pokemon Of The Month: March 2003: The Tree Gecko Pokemon Jupitol_


	4. No pot of gold around here

Laborious Labyrinth ~ Part 4 of 7  
By: Pro_V  
_A/N: Whee! I finally got it done! *peeks around* And I see no little kids to torture me, so shh...Anyways, here is *finally* chapter 4 for your reading "pleasure", I should home. And now I hear thunder...Great...Now...Onward, troops! [Usagi/Spinarak: SAVE US!] *grabs them and runs off*_

"I don't wanna get up…"

"_Wake up_."

"I _don't_ want to!"

"_WAKE UP_!"

"AHH!" Medira shot a good six feet off the floor, then crammed face-first back down onto the hard tile, "What was that for?" she whined, sitting up slowly.

"You wouldn't get up; I had to do _something_," Luri shrugged, crossing her arms, "Aside from that _lovely_ checkerboard pattern on your face, are you OK?"

"Oh, just great," she murmured, rubbing her cheek, "Where's everybody else?"

Luri pointed off toward the opposite wall, "Only Kayla, Sooney and Mizu fell in here other than us. And other than us right now, that crazy pillar right there is the only thing really _in_ this entire room," she pointed to a stone triangle standing in the middle of the room.

"Oh, now _that's_ just great," Medira sighed, shoulders drooping, "But out of pure curiosity, where _are_ we?"

"Who knows? The place we fell from is right up there," Luri motioned above their heads, "And it sealed itself off _long_ ago, while you were still dead to the world."

"Oh, how peachy for us," Medira scowled up at the closed circle above them, "Are you guys OK over there?"

"Yeah, we're all right," Kayla nodded slowly, "Luckily enough, Mizu landed on top of everyone else, so she had a quote-unquote _soft_ landing."

"I'm really worried now," Mizu murmured, leaning back on the wall and looking upward at the ceiling, "We can't even _hear_ the others, let alone see them. What if something happened to them?"

"Try not to worry too much," Luri advised, "Try and stay calm."

"But how can I?" she asked quietly, "My husband and my very best of friends are somewhere I know is close, but don't have a prayer of finding."

"We do so have a chance to find them," Medira contradicted, "All we have to do is figure our way out of here."

"That's not very promising," Sooney whined, "What if we're stuck in here forever and that round door up there is the only way out and it never opens up again and we can never get out and then we finally discover a way out of here but by then it's too late and we all get up there to find Team Rocket and everyone else is already gone forever and..."

Everyone watched in total disbelief as Sooney rambled on and on, "Watch this," Kayla grinned, "I learned this from Tracey," she turned to Sooney and took a deep breath, "Sooney, _shut up_!"

Sooney's mouth immediately froze in mid-word, "I'll be quiet," she murmured, slipping to sit beside the wall.

"O…K then," Luri shook her head slowly, "Now then, to figure out what to do to get out of this crazy place."

"Well…" Medira sighed, looking around, "I see lots of doors. Should we try one?"

"But which one?" Kayla asked, helping Mizu to her feet, "If we go in the wrong one, we _could_ get stuck. Don't even start!" she shouted at Sooney, who shrunk back a ways.

"But…None of them have handles…" Mizu murmured, "How do we get in a door that has no doorknob?"

"Ooh…Good question," Luri blinked a few times, scratching the back of her head, "Well…Maybe it has something to do with this triangle thing."

"Yeah, what _is_ that anyway?" Medira tapped the top of the stone, "Hey, what's this thing?" she picked up a long, triangle-shaped bar of glass, "It's pretty whatever it is."

"Looks like a prism," Kayla pried it from Medira's hands and spun it around, looking through it, "Reminds me of a necklace I have that Richie gave me."

"Hey…There's a hole in this thing," Sooney looked down inside the opening in the pillar with one eye, "Wow…It's bright in there."

"_Bright_? Let me see!" Kayla smacked her out of the way and peered in as well, "Hey, it is. There's a light in there."

"Let me try something," Luri took the prism and slid it carefully down into the pillar, "Hey, look at that. Fits perfect," she grinned.

"Um…It's…Moving…" Mizu pointed out quietly, pointing at the pillar as it began to spin, "That _can't_ be good."

They each stepped back as the podium began to spin and the bright rainbow-colored light shining from inside it glared out toward the walls. They looked to each other, blinked a few times, then looked back at the pillar. The light skimmed along the walls, just above the doors. Each it passed rattled, then shot open. All five girls grinned crazily, then cheered as the podium came to a stop, as they had all realized that all six of the doors were open.

"Let's go this way!" they all called, each pointing to a different door and running at it.

Medira ran down and to the left, Luri ran straight up, Kayla ran up and to the right, Mizu ran down and to the right, and Sooney ran up and to the left. As each set foot beyond the threshold, the door crashed down behind them, and each of the hexagon rooms they'd entered was black, save the light from a small opening near the floor on the opposite wall. All stopped, looked side to side, then screamed shrilly.

"_What_ is wrong with this picture?!" Luri thundered, pounding on the door.

"Let us out of here, Sakaki!" Medira called upward toward the ceiling.

"What if we never ever get out of here? What if we're stuck in these dark rooms for the rest of our lives and when somebody finally manages to get us out of here, it'll be too late and we'll all be dead and nothing but piles of dust and oh my God what if I never get to see Tracey ever again and I never ever get to go and catch that Zubat I want so bad…"

"Sooney, _shut up_!"

"I'll be quiet…"

"This is _so_ not right!" Mizu stomped, the sound of running water attracting her attention from her side, "Water? In here?" she dug around in her backpack, "Here, little flashlight. There," she flicked it on, but it remained black, "Oh frizzle…My flashlight is dead."

"Hey…So is mine," Luri growled, banging the end of it on her palm, "Come on, come on! Turn on!"

"Mine won't come on either," Medira snorted, whacking hers on the wall, "And the batteries are brand new!"

"So were mine. At least…I _thought_ they were," Sooney shook hers for all she was worth, "Not even a flicker…" she sniffled.

"This one's bulb just blew," Kayla grunted, "Stupid stinkin'…"

"Hey, Luri, didn't that Kudou guy say something about stuff like this? When he was talking to Vic and V," Medira scratched her head with her flashlight.

"Oh yeah…" Luri nodded slowly, though no one could see, "Ionizing…Radiation…Or something like that. It stops electric currents, so that would mean the batteries' juice can't get to the rest of the light. Stupid Sakaki had to go and be _smart_."

"But if that stops electric currents, that means our Poke'Balls won't work!" Sooney shrieked, covering her eyes, "What if I never ever get to see my sweet little Qwilfish ever again and none of our Pokemon can ever come out to battle or even to eat again and they all starve to death before even we do and then maybe we get out and we're safe and the Poke'Balls still won't open because of residual effects and then we manage to get them open and all of our Pokemon are gone-"

"Sooney! For the love of God, _shut up_!"

"I'll be quiet…"

"But if it stops electric currents…How come there's a light in here? And there was one in the main pillar, remember?" Mizu dropped her flashlight back in her pack, then stumbled over toward the light on the wall.

"Fiberoptics," Sooney murmured, just barely loud enough that everyone else heard, "Tracey and I…Learned that from Professor Oak. Fiberoptics are unaffected by ionizing radiation waves."

"Well…Aren't _we_ smart?" Kayla puffed, drumming her fingers on her own elbow.

Mizu tripped along the wall, finally finding something in her way. She looked down and saw, through the very faint light the fiberoptics were giving her, her own reflection. She reached up on the wall and found what she could tell was shaped like a Kingler sitting on a pedestal stuck to the wall. When she found its claw, she found the source of the water she heard.

"A fountain?" she tilted an eyebrow, "Hey, guys? Can I ask a _really_ bizarre question?"

"What would we consider _bizarre_ being where we are right now?" Medira asked, cocking her head.

"…Good point, but can anybody else see a fountain in there room?"

"Fountain?" Luri slid her hand along the wall to her right, bumping into something and slipping over the edge, "Eeh!" she wailed, flopping face-first into a large round pond of sorts, "Do you mean the kind of fountain with water?"

"Yeah, what other kind of fountain could I mean?"

"Oh, I dunno…Though I _would_ prefer a _soda_ fountain right about now," the Elite Second snorted, legs crossed and chin in hand, the Tentacruel fountain above her draining right down on her head, "But yes, there's one here."

"There's one in here too," Medira shuttered, refraining from getting too close to it, "Shaped like a Dewgong."

"Aww…I wanna see the Dewgong one…" Luri pouted, wringing out her dress and dumping her shoes out.

"There's an Azurill one in here…" Sooney poked the baby Marill's nose, "Heehee…Cute!"

"Hey…I wanna see that one too…I discovered that Pokemon," Luri whined again, crossing her arms.

"This one's a Kingdra," Kayla hopped up and hugged the one in her room, "I _love_ Kingdra."

"Hey! I want to see that one _too_!" Luri stomped, huffing indignantly.

"Hmm…" Kayla, then ignoring the grumbling Elite trainer, reached into her side pocket and pulled out a small, round compact, "I don't know why I carry this, since it's empty, but right about now, I'm glad I do."

She held it up in front of the light from the floor and opened and closed it gradually to look around. Black walls on every side and a black carpeted floor. It reminded her too much of a planetarium, excepting the fact that the ceiling wasn't covered in stars. No…This ceiling was blue. She grunted and swung the light down, finding that in the middle of the room was a glass log like in the center room, only this one wasn't solid; this one was open on top, and hanging from a stand with two chains, a metal frame, and a crank. She blinked three times, then allowing her head to flop off to the left side.

"Well…That's…Interesting," she murmured, "OK, so now that we know there's a fountain in every room, does anybody else see a glass troth thing?"

"Troth…Thing…?" Medira murmured, looking around quickly, "Hey, yeah…Right in the middle here."

"Pretty…" Sooney pushed it, swinging it back and forth on the chains, "Wonder what we do with it."

"I've got a really good idea of what to do when I get face-to-face with Sakaki again," Luri hissed, bumping it repeatedly with her foot, "And it'll be _loads_ of fun."

"Luri…" Mizu sighed, looking down at hers as well, "Hrm…What to do, what to do…"

Luri made the mistake of looking up, "Ooh…Gross!" she thundered, "Why'd he go and paint the ceilings _red_?! Is he _that_ obsessed with that _stupid_ red **R**?!"

"…Red…?"

"…Kiya…?"

"…Meh…?"

"…Wha…?"

"What'd I say?" Luri asked quietly, scratching her head.

"My ceiling…Is yellow…" Mizu murmured, scratching her chin.

"Mine is orange…" Medira stuck up her nose, "Ick…"

"Mine's blue…" Kayla crossed her arms behind her head, staring upward.

"_Mine_ is pretty _green_…" Sooney grinned crazily, "_Yay_!"

"How much you wanna bet the other two rooms are indigo and violet?" Mizu snorted, puffing evilly.

"But…What two rooms? There's only one more," Kayla scratched her ear, "We were in a hexagon-shaped room to begin with, and there was a hexagon room on each of the first room's walls, so that only makes six rooms."

"Wait a second…Maybe the middle room is the violet one," Medira suggested, "Maybe it was just so dark it looked black."

"Um…Excuse me…" Mizu shoved in, "But _why_ do we care?"

Everyone remained pretty much silent before, "It just bothers me that he'd pay homage to the League he _hates_," Luri put in, "You can't tell me that's not what it is. He did it just to tick us off."

"And sounds to me like it's working," Kayla sweatdropped, sitting down on the edge of the fountain.

"So…What do we do?" Medira asked, tilting one eyebrow, then the other.

"We rot away and never ever get out of here ever again because we're all so lost we have no idea where to go or what to do and we never see anybody ever again and Sakaki is up there watching us and probably laughing his head off at how stupid we're being because I'll bet the answer is right under our noses and-"

"Sooney, shut _up_!"

"I'll be quiet…"

Luri flopped to the floor and crossed her arms and legs, "Under our noses…Or above our heads," she looked straight upward, then to the water, then to the troth, "Hmm…Interesting concept…"

"What is?" Medira asked, using the troth as a swing, "Do you have an idea?"

"…Maybe…When I was little, I was always fascinated by rain and the ocean and lakes and stuff. It's be proven why, since my Prophetic element is Water, but my mother was an Elite trainer of Ice and Water."

"Lorelei," Kayla nodded, examining the Kingdra fountain, "Where's this leading?"

"I was always amazed by the way snow or ice or water and light could make such pretty colors. My mother showed me once that if you fill a glass troth like this one with water, or take a full glass one like the one in the front room, and shine light through it, it makes a rainbow. I used to have crystals hanging all over my bedroom like that, just to catch the light."

"Water…" Medira looked at the fountain.

"Prism…" Kayla turned toward the center of the room.

"Light…" Mizu glanced over her shoulder at the fiberoptics.

"Hurrah!" Sooney shrieked, "So we fill the prism with water from the fountain and let the light hit it!"

"Yeah, _then what_?" Medira asked in an angry monotone.

Everyone facefaulted quickly, all five planting their faces on the floor. Hey, at least this one was carpeted! Sakaki sat in his office, patting his Persian's head, seemingly in deep thought. They may have looked ditzy, but these girls were getting farther faster in this room than Wendie and Tyson had the entire time they were testing it. Jen and Jaz had done well with the spider webs, and Zanna and Rion made that "spinning hell-hole" a force to be reckoned with, and it remained to be seen how well Bashou and Buson designed the next room. It seemed though that Butch and Cassidy had done a very nice job at this one. The last room was going to be the real kicker, because Bonnie and Clyde themselves had designed _and_ built it. His two personal advisers would have _a lot_ to answer for if something messed up in there.

"Well, I'm gonna do it anyway," Sooney stated flatly, standing up and digging through her pack, "I've got part of a canteen of water here, so I'll put that in…And now I'll get the rest."

"Sooney, don't be dense," Medira puffed, crossing her arms, "What good is playing with pretty colors going to do us now?"

"You never know!" she growled back, "Maybe the whole thing is the key to getting out of here! And then I'll go find Tracey," she stopped in mid-step, hearts practically popping from her head, "And he'll be so happy to see me and then we'll all save everyone else and then we'll go back to Pallet Town and we'll tell Professor Oak about what we did and he'll be so impressed he'll tell the other professors then Tracey will be famous and get the respect he deserves and he'll be so happy about that too that he'll ask me to marry him and then we'll travel and do everything together and we'll live happily ever after!" she blinked twice, snapping back out of her starry-eyed dreamland and continuing with the task at hand, "Okie day…I'm done." 

No one else could believe what they'd just heard. She hadn't paused, she hadn't taken a breath, she probably hadn't even _blinked_ through that entire rant. She'd gone from total pessimist to completely optimist in less than five minutes. O…K then. They all shrugged, conceding to themselves that _yes_, Sooney _was_ a complete mental case. Everyone else but her sighed, got up, and began trucking water from one side of the room to the middle. Over…And over…And over…And over…

"I'm tired…" Kayla whined, "And Mizu shouldn't be walking so much."

"Is there ever a time when both you _and_ Sooney aren't whining?" Medira asked, dumping a bottle-full of water into the crystal, "I don't know how Ash, Misty, Brock, Tracey and Richie stand it."

"Probably about the same way _we_ stand being around _you_ day in and day out," Luri fumed, her palms sending a long stream of water down into the troth, "And I'm not even sure _I_ know how we do it. There," she cut off the water, "I'm done."

"You're _done_?" Mizu gaped, nearly tripping over her own two feet, "How'd you do that?!"

Luri laughed stupidly, "I kinda…Cheated. I used my Prophetic power to fill it."

"That…Was really cheap, Lurianna," Medira scowled, dumping a water bottle into the troth, "So, _now_ what are you gonna do?"

Luri blinked twice, flexing her fingers at her sides, "…Hey, ya' know, that's a _really_ good question!" she laughed stupidly, then looking over at the fiberoptics and then to the colors on the wall, "Let's see…Maybe it has something to do with this crank here. The one on the stand," she pulled on the handle, tugging it loose, "It's…Like a projector. I wonder…" she turned and pushed the stand around, lowering and bringing the troth up repeatedly, "If I wasn't trapped while doing this, this'd be loads more fun."

"Try doing something _useful_ with that thing, huh?" Mizu puffed.

"Yeah, come on, Luri," Kayla paused and yawned in mid-sentence, "You're smart; think of something."

"Why don't _you_ think of something?" Luri questioned, fiddling with the crank some more, "You're smart too."

"Please, Luri? You've got the troth filled," Sooney pleaded, practically on her knees and begging, "Now all you have to do is think of what we do next."

Luri grunted, "_Fine_," she sighed, looking around the room, "Well…Maybe the light opens the door," she suggested, turning the stand toward the door again, "It's not doing anything. Wonder what happens if I push it down…Nope, nothing…How about up…" she looked up at the door, "Hey…There's something over the door. A little…Mirror," she blinked and cocked an eyebrow, "Right. OK. Let's try that."

She pulled the glass and water up as high and hard as she could get it, reflecting the colored lights onto the glass. She let each color hit on its own, pleased at the way the light reflected over to the wall behind her. When red finally hit the mirror, it beamed back behind her and she turned to see a white light flashing just below it. She stared strangely at it a moment, then looked back as the door began to screech and open.

"Ah hah!" she shrieked, bolting for the door and squeezing out it, not even giving it the chance to open fully, "I'm out! I'm out! I'm really, really out!"

"You got out?!" Mizu stopped dead, "How?!"

"I made the light hit a little mirror above the door and when it bounced off and hit the wall behind me, it opened!" she spun around and around in the middle of the room, "Hurrah!"

"Well, whoopee for you," Medira rolled her eyes, "Now see if there's a way to get _us_ out of here, huh?"

"Yes, please," Kayla nodded, splashing her face with a handful of water, "I'm gonna drop here in a minute…"

"Um…OK…" Luri looked left, then right, then spun around and looked to every wall, "OK, that can't be _too_ hard to figure out."

"Heh…Yeah, right, sure," Sooney sweatdropped a bit, looking upward, "At least I get to look at the pretty green ceiling…Heehee!"

"OK. We got the doors to open once with the prism here," Luri bent down over the podium, "So maybe if I take it own and put it back in…It'll open them again."

"That might _actually_ work," Medira grinned, "So why not try it and get us out of here?"

"Uh…" Luri looked from the left side, then the right side, then above it, "But how do I get the prism out of the podium? It's only out like a quarter of an inch."

"Well try _something_," Mizu whined, "I'd really like to get out of here. Soon too, if at all possible."

"Yeah, you're right," Luri began to attempt to pull the prism from the podium in front of her, "Maybe if I…AHH!"

"What happened?!" the other four girls shouted quickly.

"I…Broke…A nail…" Luri sniveled, staring down at her cracked fingernail before she began wailing frantically, "It's not fair! It hurts!"

"Oh my God…" Kayla facefaulted, as did everyone else, "You've _got_ to be kidding me."

"My nail…My nail…My beautiful, beautiful nail!" she screeched, not even bothering to try and calm herself down, "Sakaki _will_ pay! Now what do I have to do here?!" she stormed back to the podium, as she'd begun to run frantically around it when she'd been "injured".

"Does anyone else think she's a total psychopath?" Kayla asked quietly.

"Whatever could have given you that idea?" Mizu murmured, drooping slightly.

"Hah! Hahah! I got it!" Luri cheered, holding the prism above her head, "OK…Now I put it back," she slid it back down into the podium, but froze, "Kiya…? It's not doing anything!" she stomped up and down, "No fair, _no fair_, _NO FAIR_!"

"We're trapped!" Sooney screamed, "Trapped forever and ever and we'll never get out again and we'll never get to get out and see all our friends and maybe they'll all get out and then they'll forget about us and then someone sees a picture of us and they remember we're here and then when they come and find us it'll be too late because we'll call be-"

"Sooney, _SHUT UP_!"

"I'll be quiet…"

"What to do…" Luri crossed her arms, pacing menacingly around the podium, "What am I to do with you, hm, Mr. Podium? You turned before…Do I turn you back? Does it have to do with which way you're pointing maybe?"

"She's…Talking to the podium," Medira twitched, "Does anyone else see something _very_ wrong with this?"

"_Nah_…" Mizu shrugged, "Insanity reigns supreme, you know."

"…Right."

"Each of the corners on this podium is a different color," Luri pointed out, now sitting on the floor, and peeked around the side of the stand, "And there're colored lines on the floor. So maybe if I turn it like that," she stood and pushed on the edge, "Ugh…This is _heavy_," she leaned all her weight on it and started running, but all she did was skim her feet along the floor.

"Come on, Luri!" Kayla called, standing at the door and peering through the slight break along the wall, "You can do it!"

"Yeah…Sure…Right," Luri grunted, then flopping down over the top of the pedestal and heaving, "If it's so easy, you come do it then."

"Sorry, we can't!" Sooney chirped, crouched low and looking on from under the door, "But Sakaki broke your nail. Get us outta here so we can teach 'em a lesson!"

Luri looked down at her fingernail, her right eyebrow slowly beginning to twitch. It moved just a tiny bit at first, then was a full-fledged tick. She'd worked too long to get all her fingernails the same length and had just gotten them painted with a perfect pattern of bubbles for the upcoming League meetings she had to attend with the rest of the Elite and Eevy. And not only had Sakaki broken her nail, but he'd securely kept her from her friends. And from _her Willie_.

She pounded her fist on the podium, "_Il vouloir payer_," she gnarled, furiously pushing on the side of the podium, "Turn, dangit!"

"What…Did she just say?" Mizu asked, scratching her chin.

"_Il vouloir payer_. It means _he will pay_ in French," Medira sweatdropped slightly.

"Turn!" Luri spat, "Turn-turn-turn-turn-turn! I'm not in the mood for this!" 

She stomped her right foot, causing a block of ice to grow behind her. She used this for leverage, pressing with all her remaining strength, and forced the pillar to turn. It screeched along the floor, leaving a circular scratch where it had been and causing all five of the girls to nearly grind their teeth like chalk. Luri stopped and stood straight after she managed to line the three colors on the corners of the triangle podium to the lines on the floor; red for red, blue for blue, and yellow for yellow. The podium started spinning again and Luri jumped back, only to watch the doors around her quickly shoot open. Medira, who had been leaning on the door, toppled out onto the floor, Kayla came shooting out and started spinning around, Mizu frumped slowly toward the pillar and flopped down over it, and Sooney skipped on out and then hopped left to right.

"We're out, we're out, we're out!" Sooney cried, running from one wall to another to another and so on.

Mizu watched her zip past, then cocked an eyebrow, hands on her hips, "All right, Sooney Sanyo Shippou…I should have gotten this the day we met, Ms. Space-Case, but I want your true planet of origin _right now_."

"Heehee…" Sooney grinned crazily, "Oh, come on! How could a cute little thing like me come from anyplace but Earth?"

Mizu remained quiet, blinked twice, then sighed, "If Earth produced you, it makes me wonder what extraterrestrials are like."

Sooney scowled, then pouted, "You're _mean_."

"Thank you."

"Could we please stop?" Medira asked pointedly, "We still need to figure out what to do to get _out_ of here."

"Right. Luri?" Kayla turned to the Elite Second, "What do we do?"

"KIYA?!" Luri leaned away, "Why are you asking _me_?! I don't know! And besides, _I_ figured out how to open the stupid doors, so it's _your_ turn," she turned and nodded pointedly, crossing her arms and sticking her nose in the air.

"Oh boy…Won't Will ever be impressed," Medira puffed, eyes narrowing.

Luri glared quickly back, hissing quietly, "Don't talk about _my_ William."

"This isn't really getting us anywhere, you know…" Kayla put in, sure to step _away_ from them when they faced her, "The longer we fight, the longer we're stuck in here. And remember, Medira," he narrowed one eye and widened the other, "_Jason_ is out there too."

Medira shot up straight, her back stiff, then hunched as low as she could, "…All right…I'll behave…I suppose…If I must…"

"Okie dokie," Sooney looked left to right, "Now what?"

Mizu flopped to sit in the center of the room, "Well…I guess we try and decide what room to go in."

"Righty-okie then," the Poison-type trainer chirped, "Any ideas?"

You know how when there's a lot of a silence, you can hear a cricket chirp? Well, right about now, they weren't even hearing that. Five minutes…Ten minutes…Fifteen minutes…Everyone sat or stood in totally silent stupor, wondering what to do and hoping someone else would break the quiet. Luri brushed her hair with her fingers, staring idly at the air, Medira was gnawing on a piece of bubblegum, Kayla was spinning her compact around and around the floor, Sooney was swaying slightly side to side, her legs crossed Indian-style, on the floor, and Mizu was fiddling with her nails in her lap. Kayla's compact rolled on off toward the side of the room and clicked open. As she started to go after it, she watched the light it reflected, then looked up at the ceiling, then peeked in a room.

"I've got it!" she suddenly thundered, waking everyone as they all fell over, "Roy G Biv!"

"…Who?" Sooney asked, tilting an eyebrow.

"Roy G Biv!" Mizu shot to her feet, "The code for remembering the order of the rainbow! **R**ed, **o**range, **y**ellow, **g**reen, **b**lue, **i**ndigo and **v**iolet! Roy G Biv!"

"_That's_ the order we take the rooms in! By the color of the ceilings!" Kayla hopped around, throwing both arms over her head triumphantly, "You guys said it yourselves that he was doing this just to tick us off; what better way than to really make it a rainbow?!"

"OK. So then we take the red room first," Medira pointed, "Onward, troops!"

All five girls barreled toward the door, nearly tripping over themselves and each other, and trampled in. As the fifth to enter crossed the threshold, the door crashed down behind them. Just as they were heading for the fountain, a small grate dropped down in front of the fiberoptics. They all froze, looking about but unable to see _anything_. _Pitch_…_Black_.

"What the-?!"

"Oh my God! Oh my God!"

"What's going on here?!"

"Ow! That's my foot!"

"Sorry! Hey! Watch where you're walking!"

"I _can't_!"

"Yow! That was a wall!"

"Why'd the lights go out?!"

"How are _we_ supposed to know?!

"What do we do?! What do we do?! What if we never ever get out of here ever again and all we do is keep banging into each other and sooner or later we all get so tired we can't go anymore and we're all-"

"Sooney…_SHUT UP_!"

"I'll be quiet…"

"All right! All right! Enough, enough, enough!" Luri grabbed who she was at least _reasonably_ sure was Medira by the back of her collar, "All of you, chill out! We've just got to figure out what happened!"

"What if we can't?! What if we-"

"Sooney! My God, shut up!"

"I'll be quiet…"

"You must really be getting worried," Mizu murmured, nudging who she was now sure was Sooney with her elbow, "You're rants are coming closer and closer together."

"We'll see what's coming," Sooney snorted, turning away to pout.

"Wait a second…I think I just realized something," Luri scratched her head, "This is the red room, right?"

"Yep. Red is right," Medira looked up and pointed, "Not enough light to see, but yeah."

"Maybe…Maybe it went out because I already did this room?" she looked around, partially glad she could only feel the rumble of the ground when the other girls facefaulted, as she wasn't able to see their faces smash the ground.

"Oh, _joy_!" Kayla cheered fakely, "We get to figure it out _all over again_! What _fun-fun-fun_!"

"Do you…Need to rest a while…Or something?" Medira asked, leaning quickly away.

"Or something is about right," Kayla murmured, rubbing both her eyes with the heels of her hands, "What I need is a good long night's sleep, one of Delia's humungous dinners, and I _have_ to see Richie again. I'm getting…So sick…And tired…Of putting up with Team Rocket!" she thundered, pounding her foot repeatedly on the one wall she could find.

"Calm down!" Luri grabbed one of Kayla's arms and Medira the other, "You're going to hurt yourself!"

"I don't care!" she flailed aimlessly, as both Medira and Luri were older, taller, and stronger than her, "I'm worried about Eva, I'm worried about Richie, I'm worried about our friends!"

"Then sit down, shut up, and be quiet!" Medira sat her down on the floor, "If you don't stop flipping out, we'll never get out of here!" Kayla shuttered and looked down, "And don't start pouting either! How are you _ever_ going to handle the Prophecy if you can't handle Team Rocket?!"

"Maybe I _won't_ handle the Prophecy," she snorted, looking away.

"If you want to keep Eevy safe, you _will_. Eevy will need you then more than ever, and you're willing to help her here, but not there?" Luri tilted an eyebrow, "That's _sick_, Kayla Andiron. Really sick."

"We understand you're worried, Kayla, but so are we," Mizu inched carefully over, nearly falling all over herself, "You have to try and stay calm so you can help us figure this insanity out…Unlike Sooney."

Sooney glared as Kayla sighed lowly, "I can try. But I dunno if I'll be any help at all."

"Sure ya' will!" Sooney twittered, _accidentally_ smacking Mizu's shoulder when she threw both arms out to the sides, "_You_ figured out how to use that little makeup thing as a wake to reflect the light!"

"Yeah, come on, Kayla," Mizu grinned, fwapping Sooney in the back of the head, "Let's get out of here now!"

Kayla sighed and carefully got to her feet, "All right, I suppose…" she sighed, "But how do we open the door now? There's no light…"

"Ah…But that is where our dearest first Medio Mistress comes in," Luri turned and held both hands up and Medira, as if presenting her to an audience, "Ta-dah!"

"Ta…Dah…?" Medira blinked twice, then flipped out, "Ta-dah?! Ta-dah _what_?!"

"_You_ get to light the way, crazy!" Luri grinned stupidly, "Your Prophetic element _is_ Fire, correct?" she asked pointedly.

"Well…Yeah, but-"

"Then it's all settled!" Luri burst, "Fire away!"

"Ugh…" Medira's shoulders drooped, "I have a bunch of crazies for partners…Nobody get in front of me, OK? I don't want to toast anyone," she waited until she was sure everyone was behind her, then rubbed her palms together, "How much are we going to need?"

"A handful should be enough," Mizu answered, "Kayla can reflect it with her makeup kit."

"Yeah. Save the rest of your flames for Sakaki," Luri grinned sadistically.

Medira punched her left palm with her right fist, thus leaving a tiny flame sparking in her hand. She blew one tiny breath on it and it flared right up into a raging fireball, nearly scorching Kayla, who'd leaned in for a better look. She lunged quickly away, then shakily drew her compact and reflected the light out into the prism, which put it right up into the mirror on the door, then right back over their heads onto the wall behind them. All five girls grinned crazily when the door slid open.

"Yays!" Sooney chirped, shooting toward the door, "Yay-Yay-Yay!"

"We did it!" Kayla cheered, tossing her compact around spastically, "Now we can _really_ start to get something done to get out of here!"

"Right," Luri nodded and patted Medira's back, "Good one, Medira."

"Yeah. Go me!" Medira snickered crazily, then marched toward one of the doors, "Hold up…Which is the orange room now…?"

All five looked in different directions, then looked back at each other and shrugged, "That's…Gonna be hard to determine, since if even one of us walks in a room, the door will close on us," Mizu sighed and crossed her arms, "So…What now?"

"We can use Kayla's mirror," Sooney snatched the compact from her friend's hand, "We can holds it in the doors to see."

"Well, since you figured that out, we give _you_ that honor," Medira grinned evilly and pushed the Shippou girl off toward on of the doors, "Which color is it?"

Sooney shot back at her a most vehement look and leaned forward through the door, "Yellow," she puffed back, tromping to the next door, "Indigo…Here it is! Orange!" she pointed.

They trampled in, nearly sending one another to the floor, and again began trucking water. Luri stood with one hand on her hip and the other dumping water down into the prism at a furious pace while everyone else started bringing water over from the fountain. Just as they were reaching the halfway point, Luri's arm fell to her side and she suddenly grew very quiet.

"Luri…?" Medira looked over at her, "Are you…OK?"

"No…" the Elite Second grunted before flopping to her knees, "I used…Too much."

"You expelled too much of your power," Mizu murmured, dropping down next to her, "Are you going to be all right?"

"Fine, fine," she swatted Mizu away and wobbled to her feet.

"Catch her!" Sooney shrieked as Luri began to tip to one side.

"I think you'd better rest," Kayla suggested, tugging Luri toward the wall.

"Forget it!" Luri slapped her off, "We've got to get out of here and I'm not going to stash out on you."

"Taking a breather to regain your energy isn't stashing out," Medira contradicted, then pushed Mizu to join the blond, "And while _you're_ at it, so can Mizu!"

"What?! I don't need to-" Medira slapped a hand over Mizu's mouth.

"Do this for me, OK?" Medira whispered, "She's gotta sit and she won't unless she's not the only one. So just take a time-out for her and for us. Besides, Eusine and Eevy would kill us all if we over-worked you."

Mizu glared slightly, then slowly slumped to a seat beside Luri as the other girls continued their work, "So…How are you?" she asked, sweatdropping and laughing nervously.

Luri just grunted, cueing Mizu to shush up before she got her head taken off. Finally the other girls managed to totally fill the prism, all three clapping for each other as Mizu and Luri continued to sit by the wall, eyebrows cocked and shoulders low. After some minor discussion, they looked to Luri. She explained to them to let only the orange light hit the mirror above the door by moving the prism up and down. The other girls did so, then watching the door rattle and slowly open with a creak. Luri helped Mizu to her feet and they made their way back out into the main room. Upon entering, the door to the orange room crashed shut and all the other doors remained closed. Luri wailed, then stormed over to the podium and started furiously digging at the prism within it.

"This is satanic!" she thundered, yanking it out and dropping it back in, "HAH! There! Now let's turn you back to where you belong, Mr. Podium."

"There she goes talking to it again," Kayla murmured, leaning away as Luri braced once more on ice from the soles of her shoes, "Should we maybe get her some help when we get out of here? Like mental help, I mean."

"It's a possibility," Medira nodded, not actually stating aloud that she was agreeing totally.

Luri growled as the podium spun around again and opened all but the two doors they'd already been in, "Well…At least now we can't repeat the stupid doors," she huffed, "Now…The yellow door was that one. Let's go," she stalked off toward the next room.

Everyone entered and everyone worked. Water, water, water, water. They were beginning to think it was never going to end before Luri stormed over and threw one long wash of liquid at it, actually serving to overfill it. She tripped away and hit the wall, slumping down beside the wall and this time on her own. Mizu leaned down on the crank and moved yellow to reflect onto the mirror, which shot back at the wall. The girls then frumped back out and redid the pillar once more, only this time, Medira was commissioned to do it, as Luri was too fed-up with the demon prism within it to go near enough to it to turn it. After a bit of a fight with the pillar, they moved on to the green room. Sooney hadn't ranted in a while, so everyone opted to let her rest along with Luri. Every now and again, however, they could hear Luri telling her to shut up, and her agreeing to do so, which meant her rest stop was doing her good. After the green room, they proceeded to the blue room, and from the blue room which Luri did on her own, they moved to the last room other than that in the center; the indigo room. With each room they finished, there came more and more disagreements and more and more of Luri's stubbornness to sit and rest, as well as Mizu's. Luri was now over-drained and was having a difficult time walking, and Mizu was close to just plain collapsing, so Kayla was ordered, by everyone _but_ Luri and Mizu themselves, to keep the Elite Second and mother of Eevy's second-cousin standing.

"Here we go. This is the last one," Mizu dumped the last bottle's worth of water down into the prism, "Now we turn the crank," she motioned to Sooney, "And then we're out of here."

Sooney forced the handle to turn, then carefully maneuvering it to indigo and watching the door open, this one seeming to go slower than the rest. When they returned to the center room, the violet room, they all stared at each other. There was no troth; there was no water; there was no censor; there was no other _door_ through which to exit. They couldn't help but stare at each other blankly.

"N…Now what?" Sooney asked shakily, "Th-There's nowhere to go! What if we never ever get out of here ever again and we never ever get to see the light of day again and we never get to get married or to achieve our goals and our dreams and-"

"Sooney, _SHUT UP_!" Kayla barked, "We've got enough to worry about aside from _you_ ranting like a lunatic!"

"I'll be quiet," she murmured, shrinking to avoid the deadly glares she was given from all angles.

"Let's try the podium again," Medira suggested, motioning to it with her thumb.

"But we've done all the rooms already!" Luri shrieked, slapping her hands on the sides of her head, "What good will it do?!"

"You got any better ideas?!" Medira snorted, storming over to the podium and fighting for a moment for the prism, "Now…Let's see what Sakaki has in store for us this time," she dropped the glass slowly back into the triangular hollow in the podium and turned around, "Who's going to help me turn it?"

She stared blankly at the wide-eyes stares everyone was directing her way, but not at her. Each of the other four girls raised an arm shakily, pointing behind her. She turned around and tripped quickly away, watching the podium now rise up, up, up above her head. All five stared at how tall it was growing but…The ceiling never seemed to get any closer to it. Wait a second…The ceiling was getting _farther_ from them…And the doors were _way_ up there…

"We're dropping!" Sooney wailed, grabbing onto Luri's right side as Kayla grabbed her left, "What do we do?! What if we keep dropping until we hit the very center of the Earth and we all get friend crispy and it's all over for us and there's nothing we can do to get out of here or even to attempt to save ourselves or everyone-"

"Sooney! For the love of _everything_…_SHUT UP_!"

"I'll be quiet…"

There was a sudden change in pressure that sent them all off the floor. They shrieked as the floor started descending at twice its original speed. Sakaki drummed his fingers on his armrest, knowing now that all of these people were a lot smarter than he'd first presumed them to be, thus making his job all the more difficult. When the loud, echoing slam aroused his attention from the screen ahead of him, he looked up just in time to see all five girls piled on top of each other before that screen flicked off and another turned on. It was now time he tested someone else…

*^~^*Part 4: End*^~^* 

_A/N: Oy...That was hard. And very cruel. [Usagi: What have you EVER written that WASN'T cruel?] Lots of things! [Spinarak: Such as...?] Um...I'll...Get back to you on that one. Anyways, I'm off to work on chapter 5 now, so I shall be seeing you. *runs off* Bye! _

*^~^*Pro_V*^~^*  
.:O=Usagi-chan=O:.  
-~+Spin-chan+~-  
-=O~The Other Pokemon~O=-  
**Next:** Special Edition: Laborious Labyrinth: Part 5 of 7.  
TAA Pokemon Of The Month: March 2003: The Tree Gecko Pokemon Jupitol 


	5. Hope you've practiced your scales

Laborious Labyrinth ~ Part 5 of 7  
By: Pro_V  
_A/N: I finally, finally, finally finished this. x_X UGH! I hope to get the next part done in the next couple of days, but don't quote me, m'kay? Onward!_

"Owwies…" the Champion Mistress blew a large gathering of hair from her face and coughed a few times, "What happened…?" she asked the air around her, one eye opened wider than the other.

"…Eva…?" Eusine rubbed his eyes with the knuckles of his thumbs, "Eva!" he scrambled over the two feet he had to and nearly decked her, "Oh God…I was worried about you, baby cousin…"

"Yeah, I know, but don't call me a baby, huh?" she demanded, but politely and carefully, so as not to insult him.

"Sorry," he shrugged after sitting back, "But you really scared me. All of us."

"Hey, I didn't _ask_ to be kidnapped, ya' know…" she puffed, "Where's Morty?"

"You mean you haven't noticed yet? Haven't noticed that you're sitting on me?" Morty puffed, crossing his arms under his chin, "So glad I could break your fall and soften your landing though…"

"Aya…?" they both looked down, finding that _yes_, they _were_ sitting on the Ecruteak City Gym Leader's back.

"Sorry!" Eevy scampered off to the side and got to her feet, allowing Morty to stand and crack his back, "Are you all right?"

"_I_ am fine," he grabbed her elbows in one quick movement, "What about you, baby sis? Are you positive you're OK?"

"Only fools are positive," she rolled her eyes, "And I am _not_ your baby sister. Nor your baby cousin," she pointed between both Morty and Eusine, "So cut it out, ya' little bakas."

"Bakas?!" they huffed together.

"So as to refrain from being called a baka, I'll just ask if you are _all_ OK," Will brushed off his pants and crossed his arms.

"We're all fine," Eusine nodded, "And you? You were in some real pain before."

"I'm fine now, though your _baby_ there really isn't," he nodded toward Eevy, "If I can feel the ache in my shoulder, so can she."

"But you said you were fine!" Morty shook Eevy's shoulders as he snatched her again, "Why didn't you say something?!"

Eevy shot Will a filthy look, which he retorted to with only a smirk and wave, "Why can't you keep your mouth shut?" she wanted to know, "I told you not to tell anyone where I was and you did _that_ anyway. If you hadn't, we wouldn't be stuck here now."

"But _you_ would be stuck here alone," Morty put in.

"I would not!" she contradicted, "I can take care of myself, _Mortimer_."

"Don't call me that!"

"Could you two, maybe, stop fighting?" Eusine asked quietly.

"Butt-out!" his cousins shouted, turning to him and hissing, then back to each other to continue their seemingly _endless_ bickering.

"Were they always like this?" Will questioned, looking to Eusine.

"Oh yeah," Eusine nodded in return, shrugging as well, "And I was officially commissioned at the age of nine to keep them from killing each other."

"Oh, I bet _that_ was a joy."

"Sure," he agreed seriously, "I got to spend nearly all my time with them and I got to help them out a lot. I love them both so much, and I miss them whenever I'm not with them. They're my two most favorite people, and I care more about them than anything. Both of them. Even if Morty thinks I only care about Eva. Plus I get to beat people up for them," he grinned stupidly.

"You're not being sarcastic, are you?" Will tilted an eyebrow.

"Nope."

"I didn't think so," he shook his head, "So…Are you through?" he questioned, looking to the now flustered Eevy.

"Y-Yeah," Eevy nodded, jabbing her brother in the side, hoping to match the black-and-blue mark on his collarbone with one on his gut, "We were just…Having a discussion."

"Right," Morty heaved, punching the back of Eevy's shoulder enough to trip her forward, "We've…Settled it…Sorta."

"Uh…Huh…" Eusine narrowed one eye skeptically, "You know, that's the same excuse Uncle Greg and Aunt Tammy use for when _they're_ fighting too."

Morty and Eevy, both still grumbling about each other, looked to each other with sudden a query in their eyes, then seemed to shutter, "We sound like…_Mom_ and _Dad_…? AHH!" they latched onto each other, "NO!"

Will leaned away as they started wailing uncontrollably, "I think you killed them."

"Nah, they'll be fine in a minute or two," Eusine shrugged, "They just don't like to face the reality that they're turning out more like their parents than they'd like."

Morty and Eevy froze suddenly, let go of each other, turned around sitting on the floor, crossed their arms and legs, and nodded firmly, "We're through."

"Right…" Will looked them over, then around the room, "Now that that's said and done…Where's everybody else?"

"I…Don't know," Eevy searched the darkness around them, "Where…Is Lance?!"

"Where's Lisle?!"

"And Luri?!"

"And Mizu?!" Eusine trampled left to right, then around and around in circles, "Oh my God! Oh my God! _Where_ is Mizu?!"

Morty and Eevy caught his arms, attempting to hold him still as he flailed aimlessly, "Calm down!" Eevy shrieked, pushing him to a wall and shoving him to the floor, "Mizu is _fine_. If she wasn't, I would know."

"But would you tell me?" he glared, "The truth, I mean. Would you _really_ tell me if she was in trouble, or if she was hurt?"

"I can speak only the truth," she yanked his ear, causing him to yelp, "And I was able to tell you I was fine before because I am. It's only a bruise on my shoulder. And _yes_ I would tell you the truth. I would _never_ lie like that. Do you think I'd want to watch your face when you'd find out she _wasn't_ all right? Would I _want_ you to hate me? I'd never do that, Eusine, and you _know_ it."

"I'm going to trust you, Eva," Eusine sighed, "But if you lie to me-"

"I won't," she cut him off and patted the top of his head, "So…Now what?"

"Well…First we should decide where we go from here," Will looked side to side, "Any ideas?"

"We could try and teleport out of here," Morty suggested.

"Sorry," Eevy grunted, "No can do. I sense the waves of ionizing radiation pulsing through this entire room; all of our Poke'Balls, Poke'Gear, Poke'Dex, cell phones, laptops, flashlights, and anything else running off electric juice is rendered totally _useless_."

"Great…" Morty held up his Gengar's Poke'Ball and stared at it, "That's just great…"

"We could teleport ourselves," Will pointed out.

"Forget it," Eevy narrowed one eye toward him, "The last time you and I tried that, we got stuck in a _tree_."

"…Good point," he agreed quickly after examining the situation a bit more.

They all looked about; at the ceiling, at the walls, at the floor…Everything was dark. Yet…They could all see. A Prophetic power given only to them; a power of vision in the darkness. Eevy stepped over to the side and looked downward.

"Hey…Check this out," she pointed to the floor, then getting to her knees, "There's an opening here."

They gathered around the square, one standing to each side and peering in, "Bells," Morty blinked, cocking an eyebrow, "_Big_ bells."

"_Really_ big bells," Eusine acknowledged, leaning farther downward through the break, "Wonder what they're for."

Eevy leaned farther over as well, squinting toward the very bottom of the _massive_ tower they were standing on top of. Down, down, down it went, every few feet hanging a large bell. Down on the floor, she could _just_ see something leaning on the wall. She cocked an eyebrow, then leaned back up.

"There's something down there," she noted to everyone else, "Something on the floor."

"Really? Where?" the other three asked, leaning over her.

"Hey! Not so close, guys!" she shrieked as she flipped head-first over the edge, "AHH! Help!" she flailed and grabbed the thick rope suspending one of the huge bells, "Get me out of here!"

She kicked aimlessly, one of her tremendous slams cracking directly into the bell hanging beneath her. There was a long, reverberating rumble, causing the entire tower to shake and those within it to trip about. Poor Eevy hung there screaming long after the tone had ceased. Will, Morty and Eusine held their hands tight over their ears, stumbling left to right, forward and back. Eevy clung tight to the rope, her ears ringing loudly at one _constantly_ shrill and painful wail. Those standing on top tripped over to the opening and looked down at her.

"Are you OK?!" Morty called down, rubbing his finger in his ear.

"What?!" Eevy called up.

"I said _are you OK_?!"

"What?!"

"_ARE YOU OK_?!"

"I think so! Are you?!"

"What?!"

"I said _are you_?!"

"What?!"

"_ARE YOU_?!"  


"We're fine!" Eusine nodded, "Let's get you up here!"

They all ignored (or didn't hear, either way) the fleeting, "What?!" from within the tower.

Will shook his head side to side, "This…Is not good," he groaned, looking about slowly.

"What isn't?" Morty asked, having finally lost the monotone ringing inside his ears.

"That bell isn't just for making music," he murmured, rubbing his eyes and ears, "It's a special bell, made to release a tone for freezing any paranormal abilities," he looked back at them, "Prophetic and acquired. Try and sense your sister's energy."

Morty shut his eyes and felt the space around him, but there was nothing but stale air to any side, "I…Sense nothing."

"Exactly," Will nodded, "That bell has frozen our powers in limbo. And until we get out of here, we'll neither be able to release, sense, or gain any power."

"So what you're saying is that we're back to the way we were when we were kids," Eusine grumbled, having been listening the entire time, "To when we hadn't even started to bring our second selves out."

"Precisely," Will looked down at Eevy, "And I sense that there's more to this room than we believe, even without my power. Sakaki brought us here for a reason, and isn't it amazing how only we, who were given such abilities, were dropped in here?"

"He had this planned all along," Eevy snorted, pulling herself over the lip around the hole in the roof, "He knows what he's doing; he's caught us when he _knows_ we're vulnerable. We're all so adjusted to life with our abilities, we'll have to try and cope without them, and when this pulse wears off and we regain them, our systems will have to accept them all over again."

"We'll worry about _that_ part of this when the time comes," Morty stuck his hands in his pockets, "First we have to figure out where to go and what to do from here."

"There's a gate over here," Eusine pointed to a black metal grate a few feet away, "Should we go through?"

"Guess so," Eevy pushed it carefully open and peeked in, "Seems all right…"

Morty, Eusine and Will stepped in carefully behind her after she had entered, "Oh look…Four torches," Eusine pointed to the flames burning on the wall, "How fortunate he picked _just_ the right number to accommodate us."

"Yes, amazing, isn't it?" Will glared, pulling one from its hook on the wall, "Stairs," he motioned forward.

"Well…I've led a pretty good life," Eevy grunted, taking a flame for herself, "I'll go first."

Morty and Eusine each took their own light source and followed quietly behind. Eevy went first, as she'd said she would, then Will, then Morty, then Eusine. Down the long spiral staircase they went, a wall to each side and a cracking ceiling above. Every so often, they'd pass a circular opening in the wall. They ignored them, figuring them to be nothing more than something Giovanni was hoping they'd get their heads stuck in.

"Hey, a stair for every way I _hate_ Giovanni Sakaki," Eevy sniggered, finally hitting the ground floor and turning around to look at the others.

"Nah, then it would have been endless," Will grinned nastily.

"Ooh…Good point."

Had Sakaki been able to hear that, he would have disposed of all but Evangelina right then and there. Why all but her? Because he needed her. He needed her power to call the Legendary Pokemon out of the woodwork for him. There was nothing in the world that would stop him from getting what he wanted; absolutely nothing. He scratched his Persian's ear as she cried at him, continuing to watched those he loathed so. Bonnie and Clyde looked on behind him, silent and obedient as always. Neither moved, neither spoke, neither hardly even blinked. They despised Evangelina Hikoboshi as much as humanly possible, if not more so. They had once been in tight with Giovanni, but when they failed in the Burned Tower because of _her_, they were given strict orders and a promise that they either succeeded the next time or were to pay the price. And when the Boss actually allows you a second chance…You take it and run with it. They were also promised that once the Legends were under Giovanni's control, they could do what they pleased with the Champion Mistress; by then, Sakaki would have no use for her. And so…They watched on, oblivious to the atrocities constantly muttered about them.

"So…" Morty looked around at everyone else, "…Now what?"

"Well…I guess we should start looking around," Eevy shrugged, "Morty and Eusine, you look that way. Will and I will look this way," she motioned to Will, "Come on."

"Hey…Who died and made _you_ the boss?" Morty puffed, causing Eusine and Will to sweatdrop, as he placed both hands on his hips…And was still holding the torch, "…OW!"

Eevy cocked an eyebrow as he patted his now slightly-singed side, "…Men can be _such_ idiots…Which, I suppose, wouldn't be offending _you_, but no offence to you guys," she waved at Will and Eusine, who snickered slightly.

"That…Was so not funny," Morty spat, "But seriously, who put you in charge?"

"Um…Incase you forgot, Morty," Eusine tugged his shirt, whispering from behind, "Eva is Champion Mistress now…And you're a Minor Master."

Morty choked slightly as Eevy laughed hysterically, "Guess you'll have to face the facts, _Mortimer_!" she cackled, grabbing Will's vest and yanking him along, "Your baby sister is your boss now! Muahaha!"

Eusine grabbed Morty and pulled him off before he could careen after her and try and kill her and Will pulled his vest from her grasp, brushing off indignantly, "What, might I ask, is _his_ problem?"

"Nothing," Eevy shrugged, looking about the walls around them, "He just doesn't like to admit I'm better than him at something. He likes to think he's my protector or something and really gets fumed when I take care of myself. Anyway, do you see anything?"

"Not really," Will rubbed his eyes, "I'm not used to having vision like everyone else's."

"Aww…Poor you," she snickered at the scowl he shot back at her, "I'm sorry. It's just that I think you ought to start trying a little harder to work without your sight and hearing and psychic upgrades. Like me."

He shuttered slightly at the very thought, "Well, for the time being at least, I'm going to have to. So I suppose I can try."

"All right then," she nodded, "You guys see anything over there?"

"Nothing," Eusine sighed, examining the wall, "Except another of those crazy round holes in the wall."

"What's up with these things anyway?" Morty leaned down and peeked through, "It's too dark. I don't see a thing."

"Hey, don't get your head stuck," Eusine advised, leaning away as his cousin put his hand through the opening, "_Or_ your arm. Come on, get out of there."

"It's one of the bells," Morty blinked twice, banging it with his fist, "Hear it?"

"Yeah. So each of those openings leads to a bell. Wow…That's…So helpful," he snorted, drooping slightly, "Geez, now we're one step _farther_ from figuring this insanity out."

"Hey, Eevy," Will picked something up that had been leaning on the wall, "Is this what you saw from up there?"

"Let me see," she snatched it out of his hand, "Hey, it is…" she looked it over, "A post with a stone Rhyhorn head on the top. That is…_So_ very informative."

Will laughed a bit as she ogled the Rhyhorn-headed staff, then turned back to Morty and Eusine, "We might have found something. How about you?"

"Found something?" Eevy fumed quietly behind him, "Found _what_? Something to confuse us even more than we are already?"

"Is that even possible?" Eusine questioned, scratching the back of his head as he and Morty ambled over, "Either way, the holes in the wall here each lead to one of the bells inside the tower."

"Ooh…Now _that_ helped _almost_ as little as this did," Eevy put the Rhyhorn head on the floor and spun the post off toward her brother, "And isn't it nifty how there's three more over there?" she pointed.

"Mm…" the Ecruteak Gym Leader grumbled, "Yes, Sakaki sure is good at his guesswork."

Will wandered slowly off to the side on his own, looking around and around. He was now under the impression that before he'd spoken to Suicune and the Beasts, he'd needed glasses. His vision _sucked_ now without his Prophetic power of multi-mile sight. He felt like he was blind, yet he had perfect twenty-twenty vision. He ran his hand along the wall, as he could smell stale air. When his hand met a hinge, he bent down and found another. Then over to the left and up.

"Hey, guys…" he murmured, "Tell me I'm not going totally insane and tell me there's a door here…"

Eusine, Morty and Eevy, who had been spinning the Rhyhorn post between each other, looked over at him, "Well, aside from the fact that you _are_ going totally insane, yes there's a door there," Eevy nodded.

"Open it?" Will questioned, looking at them nervously.

"Sure, why not?" Morty shrugged, "What's the worst that could happen? Something horrible comes out and we all die. If we don't figure this out we'll croak it anyway, so let's screw up while we still can."

"Wow, you're a sunshine kinda guy, aren't you?" Eusine ogled the older of his two cousins strangely.

Eevy sweatdropped as Will shook his head and pulled the door open, "Oh…Yuck," he covered his nose with his arm, "This place has been closed up a while."

"Eeeeew…" Eevy coughed, plugging her nose, "Musty stone and metal."

"Ooh hah," Eusine waved at the air in front of him, "That's really gross."

"Vapid air," Morty winced, turning his head away, "It smells like the lower floors of the Burned Tower, where all the rainwater seeps and makes all the charred wood rot."

Eevy reached around and pulled her cloak up, peeking inside the room, "It's the inside of the bell tower," she hacked a few times, "And _God_ it stinks in here."

"But…" Eusine scratched his head, still waving his hand around, "How could it smell this horrible? The upper portion is open. And the holes in the wall are too."

"Ahh, but that's something you missed, dearest Mystical Man," Eevy pointed out, raising her left index finger and keeping her right hand up to hold her cloak, "When I flipped through the opening, I saw a door hanging down inside it. That thing is like a shuttered window without the glass. And inside each of the openings in the wall," she backed up and motioned for them to come on in with her, "There are more. One hanging below each one. Somebody opened them _just_ before we got in here. With the size of this tower, there's no way the stale air would have evacuated yet."

"So there's some quick way in and out too," Will noted, "There has to be for them to do something like that."

"So what say we find that quick way out, hm?" Morty suggested, looking between his three companions, "If not, poor Eusine, I think, will go even crazier than he already is."

As he motioned off toward his older cousin, Will and Eevy looked as well. They sweatdropped slightly, as Eusine was furiously cramming the Rhyhorn-headed end of the post he's been examining through the hole in the wall. Just as Eevy was about to step over and tug him gently away from his seemingly stress-relieving activity of making himself look like a total _nimrod_, she paused and watched him more closely. After the initial shove he gave, there came a loud bong, similar to the one they'd heard at the top of the tower. Will and Morty both looked on as well, now totally and utterly _lost_ as to what was happening.

"I knew it," Eusine grinned, then pulling the post out and leaning on it, "Like gongs, only they're bells."

"How…Why…What gave you _that_ idea?" Eevy asked, one eye opened wider than the other.

"Well…A couple things," the post nearly slipped out from under him, but he caught it just in time, _almost_ managing to make it look as though he'd done it on purpose, "First off, the way everything _was_ closed up before. Why open these dumb little holes if they serve no purpose? Next is the shape of them. If you look into them head-on, you can just see the same shape as the Rhyhorn heads are from their noses back."

Everyone blinked before Morty coughed a few times, "OK…Eusine? I have but one question; _what_ did you get into before we got here today?"

"Hey, be nice," Eevy flicked his nose, "I think it was a very smart observation."

"Yes, actually, it was," Will nodded slowly, crossing his arms, "But now we have to figure out just what to _do_ with this observation."

"I've got an idea," Morty murmured in an agitated monotone.

"Well…We're four high-ranking, Pokemon training psychics," Will sat quietly down on the floor, "We should be able to think of _something_."

"Right," Eevy flopped down, back to back with him, "Let's put our heads together and give it some good thought."

"Does Morty's head even count?" Eusine grinned, sitting down to Eevy's right and leaning back against her and Will's shoulders.

"If yours wasn't made all of air, you could count as two on your own, judging by the size," Morty glared, sitting at Eevy's left and doing the same as Eusine.

"Now-now-now, you two. Behave yourselves," Eevy snickered, "OK…Now let's think."

All four crossed their arms at the same time, as well as closed their eyes to ponder. The room remained silent, save the very faint ticking of Eusine, Morty and Will's watches. Every few seconds, one would shake their head, and the others would droop even farther than they already were. All any of them knew for absolute sure right now was that they were stuck in a tall stone room, plastered with stale air and reverberating tones from bells. The long, spinning staircase that lead from the roof of the tower had been no where near new, nor had it been ancient or in any way antique. The stone had been sturdy, but had a certain feel to it, even without their powers, that told them it hadn't been built _yesterday_. No…No, this was planned. The door to their side was now letting the pungent air from the inside of the tower waft out at them, and their noses occasionally twitched in distaste. Each bell's rope, they'd discovered after looking inside the tower a few minutes before, was starting to actually grow _green_. This place had been open at some point, or it had somehow let moisture in to let the walls grow mossy and the ropes to mildew and mold. The stone of the bells was cold as well, Eevy had found out firsthand, which meant it was also somehow being either cooled or open to something that _could_ cool it. But…If it was open…How did the air still so bad that it grew _musty_?

"Hey…" Eevy sat forward suddenly, "Morty, do you remember what the basement was like back home?"

Morty opened one eye, even though Eevy hadn't, "Yeah…It was…Soggy. And…And flat."

All four pairs of eyes shot open, "We're underground," Will murmured, "We're in some kind of basement _playground_ for these goons. That's how the moss grows on the walls, and how everything feels so cold and damp, and how it's so _disgustingly_ putrid in there."

"When we fell through the tunnel up there, we must have come all the way down under the ground," Eusine snorted loudly, drumming his fingers on the floor.

"Well…Now we know why it's chilly down here at least," Morty sighed and slid forward a bit, then flopped back and sprawled out.

His three companions did the same; moved forward just a couple feet, then fell backwards and spread out on the floor. Their watches continued ticking, and suddenly Will shot up, looking down at the face of his.

"I've got a _really_ messed up question," Will blinked a few times, then turned slightly, tapping his watch, "How are our watches still going if there are ionizing radiation waves filtering through the rooms?"

"Is that the one the League gave you?" Eevy asked quietly, looking up at him, as she was still flat on the floor.

"Yeah."

"It's self-winding, William," she rolled her eyes as Morty and Eusine snickered quietly at him, "So is Morty's. And Eusine's runs on sound."

Will turned a sudden red as all three Hikoboshi began to laugh lightly at him, then fell back, arms crossed. He scowled up at the ceiling, now loathing Kratos for giving him a watch that would make him look like a total stup. Again they returned to pondering, but again Will shot up.

"What's the matter, Will?" Eevy asked with a slight snicker, "Wondering now how your watch winds itself?"

"Door," he murmured, stiffly pointing toward the wall opposite him, "A…Door."

"A door?" the other three sat up as well, Eevy peeking over the top of his head and Morty and Eusine looking around his sides.

Their eyes focused on the mostly-concealed door a few feet away. It had no handle and no hinges, but it was distinctly an exit. Or an entrance. Either way, it led to somewhere _other_ than where they were. And _that_ was a plus either way they looked at it.

"It's got to be a sliding door," Morty acknowledged as they stood and examined it, "It must slide open."

"Yeah, but _how_ do we _get_ it open?" Eusine asked, scratching his chin, "It must not be motion-activated, since we're all standing here and it's not moving. Must not be noise-activated, since I'm talking and it's not moving."

"God…Every time we think we're getting closer to figuring this out, it gets even worse," Eevy snorted, "But we still don't know what the bells are for anyway."

"Door, bells, posts…Door, bells, posts…" Morty crossed his arms, pondering aloud.

"That mantra is _seriously_ annoying," Will murmured, causing Morty to quiet down.

"Hm…" Eevy knocked on the door, "Hey, Eusine?"

"What?" Eusine grumbled back, spinning one of the Rhyhorn-headed staffs around in front of him.

"Do you remember that puzzle game we used to play? The one on the computer in the den at your place in Celadon?"

"Exile?"

"No…The other one."

"Riven?"

"_No_. The _first_ one."

"Myst?"

"Yeah! That one!" she pointed to him, "Remember how in the first world there was the ship out on the platform that you used a certain combination of notes to get to the Linking Book?"

"Yeah…" he nodded twice, "Why?"

"Maybe that's how we open the door and get out of here," she suggested, "If this place is meant to be like a maze or a puzzle, which by the looks of things it is, then that's a pretty good one, I'd say. Remember how long it took us to get that figured out?"

"A couple of weeks…" he murmured, "But we don't _have_ a couple of weeks to figure _this_ out. We can't save our progress and come back."

"Maybe not, but who are we to give up?" she questioned, looking back at Morty and Will, and then back to Eusine, "You're worried about Mizu, right? And you're worried about Lisle," she turned around toward Morty, "And you about Luri and me about Lance. The only way we can make sure they're safe is to find them. And the only way to find them is to figure this insanity out."

"Sad to admit…" Morty sighed lowly, "But she's right. If we want to get out of here and find everyone, the first task is to find how to get out. And also sad to admit…She's got a really good idea."

"It's true," Will nodded, "That was a good idea. But is Team Rocket smart enough to figure that kind of puzzle into something like this?"

"They are if it's Bashou and Buson or Bonnie and Clyde who did it," Eevy acknowledged quickly, "They're not as stupid as they try and make themselves appear. Bashou and Buson and Tyson are _extremely_ smart. Jessie and James, on the other hand…"

"There's no way Sakaki would entrust _them_ to something like this," Morty shook his head, "Even _he's_ not that stupid."

"Well…Then I guess we get to work then," Will looked toward the stairs and sighed long and hard, "We've got to decide on a pattern to hit the bells in."

There was a sudden sharp blow to his side, as there were to Morty and Eusine, "Let's hop to it then, gentlemen," Eevy grinned, having crashed the other three Rhyhorn-headed posts into her company's sides, "We've got a lot of work to do."

"First I suggest we start at the top and work to the bottom," Eusine put it.

"Too obvious," Eevy muttered, drumming her fingers on her Rhyhorn's nose, "As would be from the floor up."

"True," Will nodded, "How about in a scale?" he asked, scratching the back of his head, "You know…A, b, c, d, e, f, g."

"Slight problem there," Eusine murmured, "There are eight bells."

"Well that just sucks."

"C, d, e, f, g, a, b, c," Eevy leaned against the wall behind them, "Do, re, me, fa, so, la, ti, do," she looked up at the blank-faced Will, "Drama class captain, Rose Town middle and high school."

"O…K…" Will shrugged, "So…Which bell is which?"

"Couldn't tell ya'," she shrugged, causing him to facefault.

Eusine sweatdropped slightly as Will stood shakily up again, "I'll bet the first C is this big one here," he motioned toward the door that now stood open, leading inside the tower, "Let's go give it a shot."

They wandered quietly in to the center of the tower, each partially gagging on the disgusting smell of flat air, "We'll each hit from a side. Eusine, you stand there. Morty, you stand across from him. I'll go over there, and Will, you can be over here," Eevy ran around to the opposite side of the bell and looked left to right at her brother and cousin, "You guys ready?"

"Mhmm," Morty nodded, "Batter up," he grinned, swinging at the bell.

Eevy fell over backwards, Eusine stumbled around and fell flat on his face, Will wobbled side to side, and Morty crashed directly into the wall. It hurt! It echoed! It was _loud_! The entire tower seemed to shake with the deep rumble of the central bell, and it shocked them straight to their bones. When they were all back on their feet, they tripped over to each other, cracked their foreheads together and flopped stomachs-down to the floor. 

"That…Really hurt!" Eevy whined, her eyes registering as X's.

"Ooowww…" Morty whimpered, his face buried in the carpet.

"My heeeaaad…" Eusine groaned, his eyes spiraling around and around.

"Please…No more," Will wailed quietly, shaking his head and thereby grinding his nose into the floor.

Eevy forced herself up to her hands and knees, looking up and around the room, "OK…We've gotta…Keep going," she stood again and hopped around on one foot for a moment before finally getting both feet on the ground, "Right then. Let's go," she pointed for the door, picking up and using her staff as a walking stick.

The other three followed her in the same manner, hobbling up a few steps, "I think the next one…Is farther up," Morty panted, lugging the staff behind him, "Try this one," he pointed to about the fourth hole they'd passed.

With Will and Eusine still a ways down the stairs, trudging slowly behind, Eevy jammed the Rhyhorn's head through the hole in the wall and cracked it into the bell on the opposite side, "No," she shook her head, "That's too light."

There was a very slight rumble from within the tower, "Do you hear that?" Morty whispered to her.

"That…Can't be good," she replied.

A few seconds later, every single bell in that crazy tower started ringing. Will and Eusine stumbled off to opposite sides of the stairwell, and Eevy fell flailing back into Morty, who was knocked over. Will looked up the stairs as he heard their screams, only to have them roll right into his knees and knock him off his feet. Eusine attempted to run, but Eevy grabbed at his ankles, yanking him right along behind. Sakaki kicked and laughed hysterically, as they tumbled down stair after stair at full-tilt, even after the tones from the bells had stopped. They finally hit the floor with a loud and painful-sounding thud, a few moments later having all four Rhyhorn-headed staffs crack their backs, one by one.

"Ugh…" Eusine moaned, spitting Morty's hair out of his mouth, "That…Was…_Pain_ful," he just kind of sat there, draped partially over Morty with his legs still on the bottom few stairs.

"Oh my _God_…" Morty pulled his headband up from over his eyes, which were now crossed, "Are we there yet?"

"Could you…Maybe…Just maybe…" Will pushed Morty's knee and Eusine's elbow off of his back, "…Get off me…?"

"You can _all_ get off of _me_," Eevy demanded, her voice muffled by the floor, which her face was pressed against.

Eusine rolled off, then Morty, then Will, all four laid out on the floor. They laid there a moment, oogling the ceiling drunkenly, their eyes either crossed, spinning or both.

"Hey…Guys? Are you dead yet?"

"I think so…" 

"Uh huh."

"Yes."

"Cool…Me too," Eevy coughed up a fuzz ball, "I don't think that…Was a very good sign."

"Whatever could have _possibly_ driven you to _that_ conclusion?" Will asked, sitting slowly up.

"Wanna try that again?" Morty asked quietly, still not moving from his spot flat-out on the floor.

"Not particularly, no…" Eusine whimpered, his chin quivering, before he burst into tears, as did Eevy and Morty.

"Oh cripes…" Will sweatdropped and leaned away, as he was now the only one on his feet; Eevy had fallen over again, "Don't you think we ought to keep working? Please? I'd very much appreciate seeing the light of day again, if you don't mind…"

Eevy sat up, wobbling side to side, "Right," she put up her right index finger, "We must keep working, so as to find our way out."

"Onward ho, I suppose then…" Morty swayed front to back upon successfully making it to his feet, "No matter how much I hurt all over…"

Again they headed for the stairs, but Eusine paused, "Wait a second…We have to hit the central one again."

"But isn't that what screwed it up?" Eevy asked, scratching her ear.

"No. It was the _second_ bell that broke the chain. I'll wager that all the bells ringing at once reset the pattern," he trudged back down and wandered in by himself, "At least I can take my frustration out on this dumb thing," he spat, cracking it with the back of the Rhyhorn's head.

The other three watched as he came tripping out of the door backwards as the tone reverberated throughout the tower, "Are you all right?" Eevy asked, rubbing the back of her head.

"Fine, thank you…" her cousin murmured, using the wall he was now flopped against as a brace to stand straight.

Eevy sighed as he climbed past them, then followed on her own. This time they stopped at the placement of the lowest bell, aside from the one they'd just hit. Again they were sent rolling back down the steps. A third time they started climbing, now all dragging their posts on the steps behind them. A rhythmic clunk…clunk…clunk resonated through the tower's round expanse, and they ignored it; too much else was going on in their minds. On the next bell, the same thing happened, but Eevy advised them to use the staffs to stop themselves, and thus they sent Morty back down the hit the central bell, then awaited his OK to hit the next bell up. They stopped and Will hit it slowly, then ducking quickly back and covering his ears. But…Nothing happened.

"What happened…?" Morty called from the bottom of the steps.

"I think we found the right one," Eevy grinned crazily, "Hurray! Now let's find the next one!"

She ran up to the next bell and cracked it good and hard, but the tower again roared with the ringing of every bell. Morty scampered out of the way as only Eevy came rolling down the steps and draped out at his feet. He looked down at her and she looked groggily up at him, looking partially dead.

"Trial and error _sucks_," she spat.

After numerous attempts at finding the next bell, they finally managed to locate it only one after the one Eevy had hit. Their next guess was based on Eevy's ability to tell notes, and she surprised even herself by being right. She scratched her chin, then directed them to the bell next to last at the top. Eusine was the first one up and he was commissioned to hit that one on his own. He gaped as Eevy was again correct in her guess. When she was asked how she did it, she explained it was the only one they hadn't hit, as they'd mistaken for all but the one at the very top, and that had been the one she'd kicked when she'd fallen in. All this time having thought Evangelina was really putting this "skill" to good use, the other three facefaulted as she laughed crazily at them.

"Hey, I can use my tone sense to tell you the next one is the one two up from the bottom," she grinned.

Her companions glared at her, but trucked down…Down…Down…Toward the lower floor again. Morty decided the stair railing looked like a fun way down and hopped up on his, sliding his way down. Eevy sweatdropped and Eusine slapped his forehead, as he'd slid right past their target bell. He crash-landed on the floor, then ran up the steps and prepared to hit the next bell.

"OK! After this, there are just two more!" he laughed acidly, "Sakaki _will_ pay!"

Eevy rounded the stairs and slapped her hands to the sides of her head, "NO! NOT THAT ONE!" she shrieked, eyes wide.

Morty paused and looked up at her, but only _after_ he'd hit the bell, "What'd you say, sis?" he blinked and paled as that now familiar rumbling growled within the tower, "Uh…Oh…"

Eevy pounded the nose of the Rhyhorn on her staff on the step she was standing on as the bells' _hideous_ ringing again began, "_Mortimer_…_Michael_…_Hikoboshi_…" she gnarled, her left eyebrow twitching, "I…Am going…To kill you…"

Will and Eusine stood back as Eevy chased Morty down the last few steps, then proceeded to flail around after him, screaming interjections and attempting to pummel him with both her fists and her Rhyhorn-headed staff. She swore at him, yelled at him, swung at him, and finally succeeded in getting close enough to him. She lunged at him, tossing her arms around his shoulders and knocking him right to the floor. They slid a few feet and she wound up sitting on top of him, repeatedly kneeing him in the sides and snapping his headband over and over again.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit, _dammit_!" she started furiously punching his back, "How could you mess that up?! How, how, _how_?!"

"It's not like I did it on purpose!" he wailed, his chin banging into the ground, "Please stop hitting me!"

Eusine carefully edged his hand onto Eevy's shoulder, causing her to freeze, "OK, Eva. Calm down now," he grinned at her as she looked over her shoulder, "If you want to take revenge on him, let him live, and then make him do the bells over himself," he patted her arm, "Come on and get off him now."

Morty's eyes nearly bugged out of his head as his sister got slowly to her feet and stepped over to Eusine's side. Will was standing by the wall, gaping silently at the way he'd seemingly calmed the tornado twirling inside the Champion Mistress. If Lance ever tried to calm her down like that, or even of Jason did, or Will himself, she'd have torn their arms off.

"You hit the wrong bell," Eevy murmured as Morty stood up and brushed off, "I said two from the bottom. I meant _counting_ the central bell. You hit _three_ from the floor," she pointed toward the steps, "Go before I change my mind and have to maim you."

"Come on…You can't expect me to do that whole thing over again myself, can you?" her brother whimpered.

"Hop to it," Eusine motioned in the same way Eevy was, "I got her to spare your life, so consider yourself lucky and move it. Just do up to this one you messed up, then we'll all help."

Morty scowled at him, then at his sister, then looked to Will, who shrugged unknowingly. He sighed and started up the steps, grunting about annoying little sisters and pushy older cousins. Each time he hit a bell, he counted aloud to himself; a low, monotone groan that almost made him feel weaker than he really was. He was hoping to be making Eevy feel sorry for him as she waited on the ground floor with their _demonic_ cousin and the Elite Third. But little did he know that they were playing rock-paper-scissors down there, attempting to decide who got first dibs on Sakaki when they got out. A few moments after they'd declared it was best out of sixteen, Morty appeared on the highest step they could see.

"I've done as you've requested, master…" he hopped down the stairs, his neck kinked, his back bent and dragging his one leg slightly.

"Stop being dramatic," Eevy snorted, "It's your own fault for not listening."

He gave her a long akanbe as she passed, and Will sighed as he stepped up to the next bell, "This _is_ the right one, correct?" he asked, looking back on Eevy.

"Yeah, it is," she nodded, watching him hit it and listening for the rumble, "Nothing…It was the right one."

"The next one must be the fifth one up, counting this one," Eusine acknowledged, pointing up the steps, "Because you said the other c was all the way at the top."

"Right," Eevy nodded, "Let's go."

"Wait a second…" Will turned toward the door they were still hoping was an exit, "There are…Lights…Above the door…"

All three turned to look, but Eevy stepped over and looked up at the six lights beaming brightly above the door, "But that's impossible…Ionizing radiation stops the power needed to run lights. I wonder…" she reached up and grasped the thin rim around the door and attempted to lift herself up.

Seeing she was having such a problem, her brother swallowed his pride and stepped under her, standing up and seating her on his shoulders, "Can you see now?"

She looked down at him, then grinned and used his head like a drum for a moment, "Yes, thank you," she went back to examining the lights as closely as she could, "They're fiberoptics, and there're two not lit. They must show how many of the bells have been hit in the correct order."

"Well…Let's test the theory, shall we?" Will started up the steps and Eusine followed slowly behind.

"Listen, sis," Morty pushed Eevy off his shoulders and placed her on her feet, "I'm sorry I got angry with you before. And I'm sorry I screwed up like that. I guess I _should_ get used to the fact that you _are_ my boss now."

"Don't even worry about it," she shrugged, tugging his arm and handing him his Rhyhorn head before retrieving her own, "Let's just work on getting out of here."

As they were walking, they heard the next bell go off and continued to find Will and Eusine starting to head for the last one. When they reached it, Eevy sighed lowly and pushed her Rhyhorn's head into the opening, ringing it but once before pulling it back. Instead of a deep rumbled, there was a loud clattering, and all four quickly peeked into the hole, each squinting to see around the bell. They looked down, down, down through the door at the bottom and watched as something produced light. They leaned back and looked at each other.

"The door opened!" they flipped at each other, scrambling down the steps.

Nearly tripping over themselves and each other, they began to near the halfway point in the steps. As they finally rounded the bottom corner, Eevy noticed that the lights above the door were disappearing one by one, but that didn't stop her from jumping up and cheering as they got closer. Will ran ahead, but the last light went out. And much to their dismay and total surprise, the door crashed shut right in front of them. Will banged into it and tripped back into Eevy, who fell into Morty, who tripped around and decked Eusine. The domino effect ended and all four found themselves on the floor. They all sat up and gaped.

"No…_No_…_NO_!" Morty covered his eyes and fell backward, punching and kicking the ground.

"This _cannot_ be happening!" Eusine held his hands over his ears, flopped back, and rolled frantically side to side.

Will just kind of…Sat there…Twitching, "Aheh…Aheheh…Wahh…" he practically _died_ right there.

"No more, no more, _no more_!" Eevy shrieked, falling over across her brother and cousin's stomachs and causing them to cringe.

After a few more moments of constant wailing, Eevy shot straight up, her right fist clenched tightly and held high. She growled loud and clear and the other three moved quickly back. She looked up, eyes narrow and evil.

"_Now I'm angry_," she spat, getting to her feet and pounding her fist on the wall, "Let's go, guys."

Will, Morty and Eusine sat quickly up as she stormed off toward the stairwell, "But…Shouldn't we-" Eusine stopped himself as Eevy shot him a nasty look.

"I _said_…_Let's go_," she bit back, grabbing the end of the Rhyhorn staff to her side, "_I've had _enough_ of Giovanni Sakaki's tricks, treachery and lies…I'm usually a very forgiving person, but…I will _not_ stand for it any longer._"

Morty turned to Will and Eusine and shrugged slightly, then followed his sister. She made no bones about taking control over the situation and hit most of the bells herself. As she neared the last step, heading for the last they needed to hit, she paused and turned back toward Will and her relatives. The stopped a few steps down and looked blankly up at her, wondering just what it was that was churning inside of them and telling them _bow to her_. It certainly wasn't her appearance; her hair was slightly mussed up and her shirt was half untucked and her belt was kinked slightly…Maybe it was the way her cloak settled or the way her eyes were hard and serious. They didn't know, and they weren't about to find out. She shut her eyes and looked back toward the top of the stairs, putting one foot up on the next step.

"If I hit that top bell, we'll never make it down to the door on time," she looked to them again, "What do you propose we do about it?"

"Good question…" Eusine murmured, scratching his head, "We could wait three at the bottom and have one hit the bell and the other three could try and keep it open."

"And if those three _couldn't_ keep it open?" Morty cocked an eyebrow, "We'd have left someone behind. How about we try sliding down the railing?"

"But that way we run the risk of falling off, or of one of us getting stopped and stopping the others," Will sighed and crossed his arms, "Maybe we'll just have to run a lot and hope one of the times we make it…"

"No…No. I've got an idea. Come on," Eevy ran up the last two steps and pushed the Rhyhorn's head through the hole in the wall, "All right. You guys do just what I do, got it?"

"Um…OK," they nodded, then looking to each other with expressions of, "I am frightened now."

Eevy pushed the bell, then left the Rhyhorn jammed in the wall, and ran toward the gate leading to the platform they'd woken up on. She pulled it open and ran over to the opening in the roof. Glancing back to ensure the other three were watching, she stepped up on the rim and then hopped down. She caught on to the central bell's rope and looked up at the looks the others were giving her, watching all intelligence as to the situation drain from their faces.

She loosened her grip a bit and started sliding down, "Come on, guys!" she waved up with one hand, "Let's get out of here."

"God…She's insane…" Morty shut his eyes and grabbed on as well, quickly slipping down to follow his sister.

"Lord…This is wrong on so many levels," Eusine looked upward, then simply stepped over the edge and headed downward.

"Cripes…And this woman is my boss," Will slapped his forehead and slid down the rope to the bell closest to him, then jumped from into to the center rope.

"Whatever you do," Eevy called upward, "Don't let yourself hit the bell at the bottom! If you do, you'll reset everything!"

She let go about a dozen feet from the bell and landed on one foot, Morty dropped to her right on one knee, and Eusine did a _lovely_ faceplant to her left. Will, on the other hand…Will was afraid of heights…Will did not let go…Will kicked the bell…Eevy flipped out.

"_WILLIAM_!" she thundered as all the bells began to ring.

Will looked down and watched the door crash shut, "Um…I'm sorry!" he shrieked, scampering back up the rope, "Please do not kill me! _Please_ do not kill me!"

As she fumed, Eusine and Morty slowly tugged her with them. They gave her Will's Rhyhorn staff, as she'd left hers up top, and pulled her along behind them. Eusine took the higher bells, Morty those toward the center, and Eevy those near the bottom. When all but the very top one had been hit, they started up. Eevy stomped up in front of Will, who sat cringing in the corner. He grinned nervously up at her, only to shrink slightly at the filthy look she gave him.

"I…Am very sorry," he murmured quietly, "You know I don't like heights, Evangelina, and I sincerely apologize for that."

"Oh, don't worry, William," she grabbed his vest and pushed him through the gate, "You'll be able to redeem yourself right now."

"I will?" he asked in total disbelief.

"You sure will," he caught the evil gleam in her eyes, but not as easily as he did the sinister smirk she wore, "Eusine, hit that bell."

"Aye-aye, cap'n!" Eusine fake saluted and cracked the bell, then following Morty through the gate.

"So…What do I have to _do_?" Will asked as he heard the door below open.

"Take my hand…" she grasped his wrist and pushed him back, so as he stood on the very edge of the opening, "Now…_Go_," she shoved his shoulder with her free hand, thus sending both Will and herself downward.

"You crazy woman!" he shrieked, only to have her kick him back, "What am I supposed to do now?! Free-falling is my worst nightmare!"

"Comere!" she grabbed his other wrist and jerked him around, then let go and allowed him to swing around the central rope, "Now hold on until I say so!" she spat, yanking his vest and forcing him to hold the rope.

"You're satanic!" he cried, nearly bawling as he fell.

"Thank you!" she grinned, looking up to ensure Morty and Eusine were down on the rope, then looking down, "Let go now!"

"I can't!" he whimpered.

"Oh brother…" she rolled her eyes, then kicked him off and let go herself.

"Help-help-help-_help_!" Will's whining was soon stopped…When his face hit the floor.

Morty and Eusine fell behind Eevy as she dragged Will partially to his feet, "Come on!" Morty ran for the door, "We've got three lights left!"

"Let's _go_, William," Eevy pushed him forward and he quickly stumbled along, following the Champion's brother and cousin through the door.

Morty and Eusine and Will looked in at Eevy as she started into a sprint for the door. As she neared the door, she caught her foot on one of the Rhyhorn headed staffs and fell flat on her face. She twitched and looked up just in time to watch two lights flicker to one.

"HELP!" she shouted frantically, flailing a bit.

Morty reached out and caught her wrist, Eusine grabbed his waist and Will ran out and grabbed Eevy's belt, hoisting her along, "Pull!" Will lifted her a few inches from the floor and scrambled back through the door.

Will himself tripped on the very bottom edge of the door and fell into the room just as the door was closing. Eusine stumbled back onto the floor, Will fell out to Eevy's side, and Eevy flew right into Morty, knocking him over. There was a buzzer and the door crashed shut behind them. Will rolled over and sighed long, hard, and loud, and Eusine sat up and rubbed his right eye with the heel of his palm. Eevy sat up and looked down at her brother, who heaved a few breaths and coughed, then tossed his arms around his sister and pulled her down.

"Oh God…I'm happy you're safe," he patted her head and grinned, "My baby sister."

"I am _not_ a baby!" she barked, but didn't attempt to get away, "…Thank you, big brother."

"I told you they get along most of the time," Eusine motioned to Will, then to his cousins, "Though "most of the time" can sometimes turn into "very little of the time"."

"Yeah, I guess so," Will shrugged, then looked down, "Um…Do you guys feel that…? The floor is…Shaking."

The other three sat up, then stood up, and looked around, "Look…" Eevy pointed toward the wall, "The floor is…Coming off the wall."

She latched quickly onto Morty's arm as the floor fell out from under them, falling on hinges behind them and opening up enough that they all began to fall. Will nearly jumped right out of his skin and was sure his eyes had escaped his head when he'd begun falling. Eevy grabbed his vest with one hand and pulled him over, causing him to look up.

"Gimme your hand!" she ordered, grasping his wrist and then Morty's, "Eusine, grab Morty and Will!"

Eusine flapped a bit, but ultimately got to them, "This is _still_ wrong on so many levels!"

"We know, honest!" Will squawked as everyone started spinning around, "I think I'm gonna get sick!"

"NO!" the other three cried, eyes going wide.

Sakaki watched closely, eyes narrow, as the four psychics fell. They were approaching the bottom at breakneck speed, and he was glad he'd had the rubberized floor put in instead of the concrete one Bashou and Buson wanted. _That_ would have made a definite mess of things. He sighed and watched them hit the floor, each flat out toward a different corner, and patted his Persian's head. She looked up at him as he grunted, ducking as he pounded his fist on the armrest. These people were getting too far too fast, and now it was up to Bonnie and Clyde's room to slow them down. And he wasn't quite sure if he trusted them or not…

*^~^**^~^*

"Sir!" Rachel came crashing into the Rainbow League President's office, "The entire expanse of Rainbow Mansion is empty, sir! They must all have left when we saw them leave before!"

"I have the oddest feeling this involves at least _some_ foul play, if it's not _entirely_ based on it," Kratos spun around in his chair to face the window behind him, "Send all four of our Jennies out on it right now. Do whatever else you can to get them back."

"I'm on it," Rachel nodded and bounded out the door, grabbing the green phone on the desk, "Attention all Rainbow Metropolis citizens. This is a code _blue_. I repeat; a code _blue_. All Officer Jennies report to Kratos' office immediately," she hung up and dug for her cell phone, punching in a number Eevy had left with her incase of an emergency.

The number rang through a few times before someone pictured up, "This is Professor Kudou Hitotsu's assistant. Can I be of some help?"

"If Professor Hitotsu there? This is Rachel Warren of the Rainbow League and I need his assistance in finding out where the Champion Mistress Evangelina Hikoboshi is."

There was a very slight pause, "Professor Hitotsu isn't here right now, but I'll page him on the field right away."

"Great, thanks," she hung up and bit her thumbnail, "Come on, Eevy…You've _got_ to be OK…"

*^~^*Part 5: End*^~^* 

_A/N: That was fuuun...Lots of fun, actually. And lots of sibling rivalry. Joy to the world! ^_^ [Itachi: My master is psychotic.] [Usagi: Yes, little Zigzagoon, she is.] *glares* Anyway, I'm off to work some more. Bye-bye! _

*^~^*Pro_V*^~^*  
.:O=Usagi-chan=O:.  
-~+Spin-chan+~-  
-=O~The Other Pokemon~O=-  
**Next:** Special Edition: Laborious Labyrinth: Part 6 of 7.  
TAA Pokemon Of The Month: April 2003: The Aerial Pokemon Altaria 


	6. Step into the light: Or not

Laborious Labyrinth ~ Part 6 of 7  
By: Pro_V  
_A/N: AHH! Evil internet! *kick kick kick* The internet is being satanic to us, and I am getting very angry. *glares* Plus I've seen Latias in Sapphire and can't seem to score a hit on her! EVIL! *runs around in circle screaming* [Itachi:...Linoo...I am frightened.] And so you should be. *ahem* Anyway, here's part 6 (obviously) and who knows when 7 is coming, due to...Circumstances with Mr. Internet..._

"I…Hurt…All over…" the trainer Pallet Town residents prided themselves with groaned from his placement on the floor.

"Mommy…Why does the world spin?" the Elite Fourth's younger brother asked, his eyes registering only spirals.

"To make _you_ ask questions," his twin sister grunted, sitting up and rubbing the back of her head.

Lance laid there on his back, arms crossed and staring up at the ceiling, "I hate…My life," he blinked twice, then hoisted himself to his feet, "_Now_ where are we?"

"Do we _really_ want to know?" Victor asked quietly.

"_Yes_," his older brother snapped back at him, then looking around the room, "Well…There seems to be but only one way out. There," he pointed toward the wall behind Ash, "So…Let's go."

"Hey, don't you remember what happened the _last time_ we did that?" Vic reminded them, poking her head over Lance's shoulder as her three companions headed for the door.

"Well, what do you expect us to do then?" Lance asked, frowning long and hard at his sister, "Sit in here and wait?"

"That's one option, yes," she nodded, only to see him shake his head and keep going.

"Then you can stay in here and the three of us will head out and find a way out of here," he shrugged, "Right, you two?"

"Right!" Victor raised the V for victory.

"Um…OK," Ash nodded sheepishly, partially petrified to say no.

"You'd do that to me? Your baby sister?" Vic sat down on her knees and put on her usual sad-eyed act, "You'd leave me here alone?"

Lance blinked at her twice, then turned to continue walking, "Yep."

"_Hey_!"

*^~^**^~^*

"Pain, agony, and internal dispute," the Elite First laid stiffly on the floor, heaving repeatedly.

"Oh so many aches, oh so many pains, oh some many aching pains," Lisle used Brock's back as a brace to pry herself from the webbing everyone was still caught in.

After Lisle had climbed out of the webbing and to the floor, Brock shook himself loose, "I really hope…We never have to do that…_Ever again_."

"You, me, and everybody else," Richie murmured, scraping the webs from his hat and trudging through that which he was standing in as if it were snow.

"Pika-pika…" Pikachu agreed, grabbing onto his knee as he passed, thus using him as a way to get his tail free, "Pika!"

"Oh what a tangled web we weave…" Tracey said quietly, sitting by the wall and plucking strand after strand of web from each and every page of his sketchbook, "When first we practice to deceive."

There was a slight whimper from behind, which everyone turned to search for the source of just in time to watch Misty come shooting from the webs, clutching Togepi, "_DISGUSTING_!" she thundered, flailing out and toward the wall, "_YUCK, YUCK, YUCK, YUCK_!"

*^~^**^~^*

"Look at all…The pretty colors," the Elite Second murmured, opening one eye more than the other, then reversing it.

"_What_ colors?" the Medio Mistress grumbled, "I see _no_ color _what_soever."

"I see black…" Kayla muttered with a nasty hiss imbedded in her voice, "Does _that_ count?"

"Um…I don't think so, no," Mizu shook her head slowly, drawing circles on the carpet with her finger.

"What if everyone here but Luri has gone colorblind?!" Sooney suddenly cried, still lying on the floor, but covering her eyes and rolling left to right, "What if…What if…What if…" she suddenly froze and parted her fingers just enough to see, then closed them again and screamed, "I can't think of anything!" she wailed, kicking the floor.

"Oh boy…Sooney's speechless," Medira leaned away, "That _can't_ be a good sign…"

*^~^**^~^*

The Champion Mistress swept a mop of hair out of her eyes and pulled her face from the floor, looking left, right and straight ahead, "Guys? Hellooo?"

"Aiya…?" her cousin's eyes crossed as he got to his hands and knees.

"Wha…? What happened?" the Ecruteak City Gym Leader coughed, seemingly totally lost as to what was going on.

"How long have we been out?" the Elite Third moaned, rolling onto his back and rubbing his eyes.

"I don't have even the foggiest clue," Eevy shrugged, "But come on. On your feet, boys."

"Stop it…" Morty whined, swatting her away when she grabbed his arm, but only serving to cause her to _yank_ him to a stand, "…Ow."

Eusine and Will joined them, all four of them teetering slightly into each other, "Never again…Never _ever_ again…" Will choked up a piece of fuzz and hobbled to the door.

Eusine searched the walls, "Button, button, who's got the button…" he grumbled, pushing the button he finally laid his hand on and watching the door slowly open.

Unseen to any of them, a door directly across from theirs was accidentally opened when a Dragon Master had shoved a certain twerp into the wall and hit the switch. Ash scrambled out before Lance could and Vic and V jammed out one beside the other. Eevy came through first, followed in single file by Morty, then Will, then Eusine. Her eyes wondered about the room, though she was unable to see, and she watched as her brother, cousin, and Elite Third stepped around her sides to begin looking. Lance did the same; watched as his relatives and that _kid_ wandered about, seemingly aimlessly, but he paused suddenly and took a deep breath. Vic looked back at him, tilting an eyebrow.

"Are…You all right, big brother?" she asked worriedly.

"I…Smell raspberries…And peaches…And perfume," he shut his eyes and his nose twitched as he turned around the room, then directly out from the door, "I smell Eevy."

Victor looked over at him, then back at Ash, "And he says _I'm_ bad."

Ash just shrugged before Vic shot past him and proceeded to pummel Victor with a mallet, "Be nice!" she growled, finally whacking him across the room.

"OUCH!" he whined, sliding to a stop on the floor, directly beside someone's foot, "…Master…Will?"

"Victor?" Will felt as if restraining his eyes from rolling out of their sockets.

"Morty?" Ash scratched the back of his head.

"Eusine? You're here too?" Vic cocked her head, "How'd _you_ get here?"

Lance scratched at his eyes, then took a step forward, "I _knew_ it. I _knew_ who it was," he shoved Ash out of his way and made a beeline for the opposite end of the room, "Evangelina!"

She turned around just as he grabbed her waist and swung her at least two feet from the floor, "_Dragon_!" she shrieked as he whipped her around, "Lance, come on! Put me down!"

He dropped her feet to the floor, then tightening one arm around her waist and putting the other around her shoulders, "Evangelina…Oh God, I was worried about you," he held her tighter still, "I never ever want to lose you again."

She hardly had enough room to _breathe_, let alone to move and tell him he was holding too tight, "I…Was worried…About you…Too…"

"Sorry," he loosened his grip and sweatdropped, "Got a bit carried away. But I can't help it," he pushed her bangs back and kissed her forehead, "Raspberries, peaches and perfume."

"Heh…Yeah," she shrugged, "And _you_ smell like shampoo and after shave."

"You should know, since you go around _hugging_ my coat…"

"Yep!" she chirped and latched onto him, "You bet!"

The doors to their sides opened and the rest of those missing came stumbling out, "That Sakaki…_He will pay_!" Luri thundered, stomping her foot, "…Will…?" she blinked twice, then seemingly rocketed forward, "Willie!"

She knocked him back a couple of steps, but he managed to stay standing, "Still as loud as ever, I see," he sweatdropped as she scowled lowly, "You _know_ I really _was_ worried about you, Lurianna."

"I know," she punched his shoulder, spinning him around, "But, please…Don't joke. Not after the fiasco we've just been through."

"Jason!" Medira knocked Brock over and trampled right over his back, "Jason-Jason-Jason-Jason!"

"Oh boy…" Jason braced him self and knew he was right to do so when she hit him and he nearly collapsed, "Um…Hello, Medira…Aheh…"

"Tracey!" Sooney shrieked, causing the Pokemon Watcher to search for a place to hide, "Yays!"

"AH!" he held up both hands as she whacked into him, knocking him right to the floor, "Did you _have_ to do that?!"

"Heehee…Yep!"

"I was afraid of that…"

"Richie!" Kayla grabbed Misty's arm.

"Ash!" Misty did the same right back.

Both flew at the aforementioned Pokemon trainers, one coming from each side, and shoved Ash and Richie right back into each other, "EH! Um…Hi," the trainers murmured, twitching slightly.

"Morty!" Lisle leapt over Brock, who now lay drumming his fingers on the floor, and ran at Morty, "I missed you! I missed you, I missed you, I missed you!" she latched onto him and squeezed as hard as she could, "Mortimer Michael!"

"Yeah, great…" Morty gagged, partially due to the pressure of her constraining hug and partially due to the fact she'd used that _horrible_ name, "I…Uh…Missed you too…"

"Mizu!" Eusine made no mistake about jamming Victor out of the way and stepping on Brock's head just as he was beginning to get to his feet, "Zumi, just stay there! I'm coming!"

Mizu sweatdropped as he kicked Brock in the head once again, "Eusine…I'd glomp you and all, but…"

"Yeah, trust me…I _do not_ mind," he looked around the room, "Nope…Don't mind at all. But you're all right, aren't you?"

"Perfectly fine," she nodded slowly, "You worry too much."

Morty looked up for a split second, then everyone did, "Do you hear that? It sounds like…Like a bell."

Sakaki, having heard that through the voice tube in the wall, looked closer to the screen. Those in the room, as well as Sakaki himself, searched for the source. And they found it. Quite easily too. The bell on Eevy's necklace was glowing a furious white, ringing every so often. Eevy held her hand up under the Bell as it slowly started to hover. It gave one loud chime, then burst white. Everyone ducked, only to watch the light fill the room. Though it was still dim, the flash kept the room lit, even after everyone finally got the courage to look around. Eevy brought the Bell around above her hand and caught it as it finally stopped glowing.

"…What was that?" Lisle asked quietly, eyes darting side to side.

"Eevy's Prophetic power," Morty replied as Eevy tucked the necklace back down her shirt, "The power of Light."

"So it's true then," Bonnie murmured from behind Giovanni's chair, "She really _is_ the Light side of the Beasts' Prophecy."

"And if we can get her Bell to react to her distress, it will call the Legendary Pokemon to aid her," Clyde grinned crazily, "And we'll _finally_ be able to achieve what others have tried."

"Watch them closely," Sakaki ordered, looking back on them, "I want nothing overlooked."

"So…" Eusine leaned against the wall beside Mizu, "What kind of craziness did _you_ face?"

"Ugh…" Luri rubbed her eyes, "Psychedelic colors and pretty lights."

"Ooh…We got a spinning hell-hole," Lance grinned stupidly.

"We got…Bugs…Lots…Of Bugs…" Misty cringed, ducking behind Ash, who rolled his eyes.

"We got bells. _Big_ bells. _Big_ bells and a _big_ tower," Will sighed, crossing his arms.

"Wow…Sounds like…Such fun…" Kayla whimpered, sitting down on the floor, "So…What do we do now?"

"Well…" Eevy looked down, crossing her arms and closing her eyes, "Based on what we've been through so far, I'd wager to say we have another joy-joy puzzle to solve."

"_Another one_?" Victor whined, collapsing at his sister's feet, "No…Please no!"

Mizu groaned and slipped to sit, leaning back on the wall, "How many more are we going to have to do before we get out of here?"

"Who knows?" Richie shrugged, "Could be one or a dozen or more."

"Geez…" Ash cracked his head on the wall repeatedly, "We're doomed…"

"Well, whether we get out of here or not, _kid_, you yourself are doomed," Lance crossed his arms and snorted, "But the rest of us aren't."

"Hey," Eevy gave him a swift smack on the back of his head, "You be nice to him or I'll hurt you."

"Aheheh…Right, Eev," Lance murmured, rubbing where she'd hit him and grinning stupidly.

"So what do we do?" Jason asked, looking around at everyone else, "If we could all, in groups, figure out the other puzzles, all of us together should be able to get through this."

"_Should_," Medira emphasized, "Doesn't mean we _will_."

"Well, you little pessimist you," Vic sweatdropped.

"For once, though, the little munchkin is right," Luri nodded slowly, "We _should_ be able to get out of here."

"Stop callin' me munchkin," Jason glared, puffing lowly.

Will laughed nervously as Luri and Jason began a minor verbal duel, but the flash of light out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, "Hey. What's that?"

"What's what?" Morty questioned, looking around.

"Up there," the Elite Third pointed upward, "See it?"

All eyes veered slowly upward, including Luri and Jason's. What they saw was nothing more than a mirror, on the wall, reflecting the light from one small light on the wall right back onto itself. Everyone cocked their heads one way, then the other.

"What…Exactly…Is that?" Brock asked, hands on his hips, "And how did you notice it?"

"Prophetic power of Shadows," Will shrugged, "The direct opposite of Eevy. And before you even _start_, short-stuff," he shot Jason a filthy look, "I am _not_ evil."

"Aww…You took all the fun out of it," Jason sniggered, "But seriously…What's with the mirror?"

"_Mirrors_," Tracey corrected, pointing to the ceiling with the eraser of his pencil, "There are more on the ceiling."

"Hey…He's right," Richie blinked twice, "Look at 'em all. And there's a censor over there," he pointed.

"Wowo, Tracey!" Sooney attached herself quickly to his arm, "You're so smart and observant!"

Tracey rolled his eyes and attempted to detach her whilst everyone else pondered the room, "So…We get the light to the censor. Easy stuff, since we did it once already," Kayla marched over to the wall and spun the mirror around, pointing it directly at the censor.

"No, Kay, don't!" Eevy shrieked, mere seconds too late.

"…Why not?" Kayla questioned, only to hear a loud rumble and the screech of metal, "…Oh…That's why not."

Everyone looked around, all frantically searching for what it could be that was making all the noise, "I don't see anything changing," Brock acknowledged.

"…I do…" Morty murmured, Lisle standing by his side, and both staring upward, "Um…Up, up and away…?"

"The room is…Getting taller," Luri whimpered, backing away from the walls, "Please tell me it's the ceiling going up and not the floor going down like last time."

"It is," Medira backed away as she too watched the ceiling rising a few feet, then locking into place, "Why…Did that happen?"

"Sakaki is no fool," Lance grunted, "Aiming that light directly at the censor would be _way_ too obvious and _way_ too easy."

"OK…So we bounce the light off another of the mirrors," Vic shrugged.

"That's too easy too," Eusine put in, "Something that simple is way too off balance compared to the other rooms."

"We can't just rush into this. We've got to sit and think it through," Eevy leaned against the wall just after it stopped raising, "But what would really help is getting a look at those mirrors."

"Yeah, but…" Richie tilted an eyebrow, "The ceiling raised. How do we get to them now?"

"Eh, that's easy," she shrugged, "Morty, come give me a boost."

"Right…" Morty wandered over, stretching his arms above his head.

Morty got down to one knee and Eevy hopped over his back and sat on his shoulders. He stood up and Eevy waved down at everyone one else, then reaching for the mirrors. She tapped Morty's head, then motioning upward, and he helped her get up to stand on his shoulders. Kayla hopped up and down and clapped.

"Hah! I used to _love_ watching them do this!" she screeched.

"Yes, they _are_ good at what they do," Eusine nodded.

"And what, exactly, _do_ they do?" Mizu asked quietly.

Kayla and Eusine both looked at her, "Act crazy."

"That requires acting?" Medira questioned, eyes going wide.

There was a thump as Eevy hopped off Morty's shoulders, "Looks like there's some kind of pattern to the way the light flows. Inside some of the mirrors is a little censor like the one over there."

"OK…So we find the mirrors with the censors in them," Victor scratched the back of his head, "But how will we remember which ones they are?"

"Mark them somehow?" Misty suggested, looked around at everyone, "But…How?"

There was a dead silence. A very quick settling dead silence at that. Not a sound was heard; not even a peep from anyone. Everyone looked at everyone else, wondering when someone else would just come right out and say "Who knows?" but no one said _anything_. They finally all sighed, looked to each other, and shrugged unknowingly.

"No clue," they all said together.

"Why does everything have to be hard?" Mizu snorted, "_Everything_ we've _ever_ gone through has been more than overly difficult."

"Yes, but not impossible," Eevy noted quickly, "We've come a long way. We've conquered everything you're thinking of."

"Or most of it, anyway…" Lance muttered from her side, "But still, that doesn't help us get out of here."

"Right…" Will nodded slowly, "So…Let's think."

"Hey…" Jason scratched his head, "If the mirrors _turn_, do they turn all the way around?"

"Eusine," Eevy poked her cousin's shoulder, "Lift me up."

"If I must," he sighed, linking his fingers together in front of him, "Hurry up."

"I'll go as slow as I please," she puffed, smacking his forehead before stepping back into his hands, "On three. One, two, three."

Eusine lifted her up, holding her right foot in his right hand and putting her left on his shoulder. Pretty much everyone facefaulted, now beginning to wonder if all three Hikoboshi of this generation were utterly insane. Their answer? Yes, they'd finally concluded. Eevy flicked the mirror and watched it begin to spin around and around in a complete circle, then looked into the glass. Finding it had no censor, she turned it around backwards. She then flipped down and landed with a thud.

"Yeah. They spin freely," she nodded, then tilting an eyebrow at the odd looks she was receiving, "…What?"

"…Nothing," Medira moved slowly away behind Jason.

"So…Now all we have to do is get up there and start checking the mirrors," Misty murmured, staring upward at the ceiling.

"Yeah, but how do we do that?" Ash questioned, moving _back away_ from Lance, so as not to be pummeled, "The ceiling is _way_ up there."

"It's easy," Eevy shrugged, "Do like we did."

"Like _you_ did? You mean stand on each other?" Kayla jumped back a few paces, "No chance!"

"There's no _way_ we could do that," Richie shook his head, running away to hide behind Kayla, "We're no where near that experienced. And besides, even then we wouldn't reach the higher ones."

"Ah, dearest Captura," the Champion Mistress snickered, "You must have faith. Morty, Eusine," she waved back at them, "Come on."

Lisle twitched slightly as she watched Morty walk away, "Hey…You be careful, OK?"

"Eusine, you too," Mizu ordered, crossing her arms.

"We're always careful," Morty, Eusine and Eevy answered together, causing everyone to sweatdrop.

Morty leaned forward on the wall, wincing as Eusine stepped up on his back, his heels digging into his backbone, "Hey! Watch it, pimp!"

Eusine, after kicking Morty in the head, stood on his shoulders and leaned forward on the wall himself, "OK. Stand up _slowly_."

"Yeah, no fake," his cousin grunted, standing up straight, "Eva! Let's go! Hurry up, before the pixie breaks my spine!"

"_What_ did you just call me?!"

"Cut it out, you two," Eevy rolled her eyes, finding that Morty's belt made a lovely ladder, "Hold still. And brace yourselves."

Morty almost fell over as his sister used his shoulders and waist as a climbing apparatus and then did the same to their elder cousin, sitting up on Eusine's shoulders. Their tower wobbled left to right and stumbled front to back, but Eevy braced on the ceiling and Eusine and Morty used the wall for balance. Kayla clapped and cheered, hopping left to right, and everyone else stared at them oddly.

Eevy clapped her hands together and waved downward, "Hidee-hodee-hodee!" she grinned, "OK, we'll check the higher mirrors. You guys check the lower ones."

"Er…Right," Richie murmured, stepping out of Morty's way as he weebled past.

After many failed attempts at lifting his twin up, Victor was floored, heaving repeatedly, and Lance was left to seat his little sister on his left shoulder. Brock went _flying_ past everyone else when he asked Lisle if she'd want him to hold her up, and when he finally managed to pry his face from the floor, he had a _lovely_ handprint on his left cheek and a fist mark directly between his eyes. For those mirrors which were _just_ too high, Tracey was lifting Sooney up to examine them. Kayla and Misty discovered that Richie and Ash made nice stepstools as well, and were checking some of the lower mirrors whilst the aforementioned trainers strained to support them. Pikachu was assisting Eevy with the mirrors that were all the way up-up-up on the very top of the ceiling. Will was lifting Luri off the floor merely with his mental stability, as they'd been out of the bells long enough that they'd been readjusted to their abilities, and Jason was holding Medira up on his back, stumbling around on one foot, then on the other. Brock and Victor sat quietly on the floor, going _duh_ basically, and Mizu sat on the floor holding Togepi, watching this and pondering how she could be of some sort of help. All three sighed, banged their heads back onto the wall, and muttered about hating Sakaki.

*^~^**^~^*

The Pokemon Researcher Kudou Hitotsu's Hummer came _flying_ through the front gate of Rainbow Metro. So fast, actually, that the two stand-in gatekeepers only saw the clouds of sand in its wake after it had passed them. He hit the breaks, swinging the backend of the car all the way around in a complete circle and fumbled out, getting his foot caught in the seatbelt. Straightening his belt, he sprinted up to Kratos' office door and threw it open.

"Where is she?" he heaved, staring Rachel down, "Where is Evangelina?"

"We don't know!" Rachel burst, "We watched everyone _but_ her take off early this morning and haven't seen any of them since! But we got reports from some of the populous that saw a Team Rocket blimp flying over the Mansion before they left."

Kudou slapped his own forehead, "All right. We'll find her. Can I use the videophone?"

"Go ahead," she pointed, jumping away as he shot past, "Geez…At least say excuse me."

"Now is not a time for manners," he puffed, sitting down and dialing his own lab.

Rachel poked her head over his shoulder as his assistant's picture flickered onto the screen, "What are you going to do?"

"Does Eevy still have the computer room at the Mansion?" upon receiving a yes, he looked back at his assistant, "Get into them. Find the backdoor to her computers and open them up. When you get in, find her Poke'Dex number and trace it."

"Right," she reached off to the side, pulling over a laptop.

"…Is this legal?" Rachel questioned quietly.

"Do you want legal or effective?" Kudou asked, causing her to sweatdrop.

*^~^**^~^*

"Hey…" Eevy grunted, punching furiously on the mirror above her head, "This one won't turn."

"Pika-chu…" Pikachu grunted, pushing it as well, "Pikachu!"

"Is there a censor in it?" Morty questioned from below her.

Eevy stood as tall as she could and she and Pikachu looked into it, "…No. Nothing. Hey down there!" she looked around the room below her, "Can somebody use the light to hit this mirror?"

"I'll do it!" Mizu jumped up, hopping over to the light and turning it upwards, "Your head is in the way, Eevy."

"Oops, sorry," Eevy sat down on Eusine's shoulders and watched the light hit the mirror and reflect directly to the floor, "Wha…?"

The light mirrored directly downward, hitting the floor and splaying outward. Everyone backed up to the walls, watching as the white light flowed around under the glass floor and hit mirrors, reflecting back and forth and left and right between them. The mirrors split the light off into two lights repeatedly, then back to one. After the mirrors had served to light the floor, the light hit the wall, thus lighting more mirrors at the edge of the floor. These lights created multicolored columns, pointing up to the ceiling and to where some of the closed mirrors rested. With nothing else to ricochet from, the light died down.

"That…Was trippy," Lance murmured, clearing his throat, "What say we open the mirrors?"

Even Ash ran for the wall at that, flipping the lowest ring of mirrors around and aiming them for the ceiling. Once that was finished, again Mizu pointed the light for the central mirror. It again flashed downward and hit the floor, washing around the mirrors beneath the glass they stood on, then off toward the walls, then up at the ceiling and right back to the central mirror. The pattern began again; a never-ending repeat of itself.

"Perfect!" Sooney clapped, "It brightened everything right up!"

"Guys…" Eevy poked the top of Eusine's head, "Let me down a minute."

Eusine sat down on Morty's shoulders and Eevy slid off their backs, then Eusine slipped off Morty's. Eevy stepped out to the center of the glass and looked down, studying, surveying the pattern of light. She sat down on her knees and looked closer, causing everyone to begin to wonder. None of them saw anything special about it. Why was she so intent on looking it over? She looked one way, then another, then another, then looked back down, then up.

"What's the matter?" Ash asked quietly, tilting an eyebrow.

"It all makes perfect sense," she turned around, pointing at a blue light a few feet away, "Suicune the Water God of the Northern Winds! That light is in the north! Raikou the Thunder God of the Western Clouds! That light is in the west! Entei the Fire God of the Eastern Sun! That light is in the east! And Ho-oh the Rainbow Winged Phoenix of the Heavens!" she pointed up, "That little _toad_!"

"That's a defacement of the Prophecy and of the Legends!" Eusine spat, "He's using their pasts as a lure!"

"He told me himself he was after the Legends, but this…" Eevy clenched her fists, "He knows what he's doing just a little _too_ well."

"But it's just lights," Richie put in quickly.

"No, it's not," Eevy looked back on him, "These lights are placed in perfect align and it was done _on purpose_. He's doing it to get me angry and he knows he's doing well."

"But…Why?" Misty scratched the back of her head, "Richie's right; it's all just lights."

"That's just it," Eevy pulled her Bell out, "This Bell is _of_ Light. He's defiling the power of the spirit within it. She senses the way the color pattern is too, and if she gets angry enough, she'll emerge."

"And that will bring the Legends with her," Will acknowledged, "She feels disgraced and mistreated, and she has every right to be so."

"Sakaki _knows_ the legend of the Beasts and Ho-oh and he _knows_ about the Prophecy," Luri picked at her now chipped fingernail, "And he also knows that if the spirit within the Bell feels it's needed, she will emerge from the confines of the Crystal Device. To protect or avenge her vessel and the vessels of her Council."

"I see they've figured it out," Giovanni leaned his elbow on the arm of his chair, his chin in his hand, "They're quite a bit more in-tune with the Prophecy than I thought they'd be. They adjusted fast to their second souls sharing command of their physical forms," he grinned evilly, "But I doubt that will save them from the full wrath of Amatsubikei and her Guardians when they're fully enraged. You two back there!"

"Yes, sir?" Bonnie and Clyde scuttled up from behind.

"Begin preparing the next room," he looked back ahead of him, "I have the oddest feeling that this won't last much longer."

"Right!" they both saluted and ran out.

*^~^**^~^*

"I'm not getting a real reading from her Poke'Dex, Professor," Kudou's assistant sighed, "It's like it's totally offline."

"It might be," Kudou scratched his chin, "Try looking for its most recent recording in one of the city's or one of the route's databases. If the blimp passed any of the arches before them, it'll have recorded it."

"OK. I'll search through their computers so no one can't track us."

"Are you a hacker?" Rachel asked plainly, causing Kudou to cough and sweatdrop.

His assistant looked up, "I prefer the term _digital locksmith_," she smiled for about half a second, then went back to her previous activity, "The most recent recording of Mistress Hikoboshi's 'Dex number was early this morning, heading into Machete Forest from an aerial position."

"There's our target," Kudou smiled evilly, "Well done. You get the rest of the day off for this."

"I already had today off," his assistant glared, "I only did this because it was an emergency."

"Did I say today? I meant _tomorrow_!" her boss laughed innocently, waving his hand at her, "Erm…Bye!" he hung up before she could retaliate and turned to Rachel, "So how do we get to Machete?"

*^~^**^~^*

"I've got to sit for a minute, guys," Eevy slipped slowly to a seat on the floor beside the wall.

"Are you all right?" Lance buzzed around her, "Is there something we can do to help? Other than killing Sakaki, I mean."

"I'm fine," she reached inside her shirt and pulled her necklace up, "It's the spirit of the Bell that's not."

"It's…_Red_," Kayla murmured, poking the Bell with her finger, "Owwies! It's hot!"

Eevy snickered as Kayla blew on her finger and whined about it to Richie to kiss it and make it better. He merely waved her off and walked away. She, therefore, stormed after him and whacked him with a paper fan. Morty jammed his way past Lance and felt his sister's forehead.

"You've got a fever," he informed her, "Take off your cloak," he untied and took it before she could contradict.

"Here," Tracey handed her the water bottle he'd had in his backpack, first plucking a bit of webbing from it, "Aheh…"

"Thanks," Eevy nodded, sweatdropping as Sooney started asking Tracey if he had any water for her.

"Now…We need to sit and think this through," Jason leaned back on the wall and crossed his arms, "Really well too. We need to figure out what kind of pattern it takes to get the censor to work correctly."

"OK," Medira looked all the way upward at the ceiling, "They all look random to me…"

"Maybe the pattern _is_ random," Victor shrugged, scratching his ear.

"No…" Luri shook her head, "Everything we've been in so far has been _planned_; based off or driven by something designed specifically for what we needed to do. A rainbow, a scale, the four major elements, precise weights…"

"Eevy…" Will blinked twice, then turned slowly toward her, "Didn't you say Sakaki specifically said something about the Legendary Pokemon…?"

Eevy looked up, "_That's it_."

*^~^**^~^*

The younger sisters to the Talon Town Gym Leader burst through the door of Kratos' office, "Hiya!" they shrieked, arms held high.

Rachel blinked twice, "Kudou Hitotsu, meet Jay and Robin Luftar; Gym Master Kestrel's sisters."

"Um…Hi," Kudou waved slightly, one eyebrow tilted the entire time as they grinned and waved back.

"Don't let our kawaii faces fool you," Jay chirped, poking her own cheeks.

"We're ruthless battlers and awesome pilots," Robin finished, bowing low, "At the service of the Rainbow League."

"_Pilots_?" Kudou whimpered as Rachel pulled his arm and dragged him out the door behind her, "You couldn't possibly mean-"

"Yep!" Robin clapped, "We- -that is, Jay and I- -will be flying you to find the Champion Mistress!"

"Can we…Trust them?" Kudou asked quietly.

"…To a degree," Rachel answered, sweatdropping as Jay fiddled with the hood ornament of Kudou's car, "…A very…_Slim_ degree at times, but a degree none the less."

"Oh…Great!" Kudou laughed nervously, having rounded the corner and finding great relief in spotting numerous Jennies standing in the airfield, "Thank _God_…"

"I certainly hope you've got somebody on your force who can fly a plane," Jay huffed, glaring at one of the Jennies.

"Why is that?" Jenny of the western district asked blankly, "Is there a problem?"

"You bet," Robin nodded, "There's no way we can pack all these people on two little planes."

"Not two; _three_," the Master of the Silver Badge waved from the door of one of the hangers, "I'll be flying too."

"And I'll be helping!" the red-headed trainee of the Talon Town Gym poked her head out from over his shoulder, then trampled over him, "Hi, Jay! Hi, Robin!"

"Hi, Yui!" Kestrel's sisters burst and hopped over.

"A bit…Hyperactive, don't you think?" Kudou whispered to Kestrel as they began to twitter between themselves.

"I…Am surrounded…" Kestrel moaned, picking himself up and slumping back inside the hanger.

*^~^**^~^*

"A little higher…" Eevy choked, stretching her arm above her head, "This is…The last one…"

"I can't…Go any higher!" Eusine gagged, attempting to stand his cousin just _ever so much_ higher.

"Neither…Can I!" Morty wobbled left to right, nearly losing his footing entirely.

"Pikachu," Ash looked down at his side.

"Pika?"

"Go help Eevy," he pointed, "And be careful about it."

"Pika!" he cheered, waving the V for victory and scampering over and up Morty's back, then Eusine's, then Eevy's and stopping on her head, "Pika-chuu!"

"Heehee…Hi!" Eevy waved at him, "Push that mirror around until I say stop."

"Pi…" Pikachu slowly, with one eye closed and his tongue slightly hanging out, carefully began to maneuver the mirror around, "Ka…"

"There! Perfect, Pikachu!" Eevy clapped and cuddled Pikachu after he'd hopped into her arms, "OK, Mizu! Let it go!"

"Right," Mizu tapped the light into line with the first mirror and watched it begin to bounce, "Ooh…Pretty."

As the light reflected, everyone watched intently, attempting to decide what the pattern was, as Eevy hadn't said. All she'd done was grabbed Morty and Eusine and dragged them over to the wall, telling them where to go and what to do. As Eevy herself and Pikachu, who was on her back, watched the light speed over their heads, they both leaned just a _tad_ too far backwards. Pikachu shrieked, as did Eevy, and both of them, as well as Morty and Eusine below them, toppled over backwards. Pikachu fell off and hit the wall, catching a mirror with his tail, and Eevy flailed backwards, cracking her head on one of the most vital mirrors and arching the light off towards another one. Morty hit the floor, then Eusine, then Eevy, and Pikachu landed right on the top of his head behind them all. Eevy's brother and cousin turned slowly back to look at her and Pikachu, and everyone else gathered slowly around them both, glaring at them.

Eevy sat stiffly up, eyes flailing left to right at all those surrounding her, "Um…" she gave a wide, cheesy grin, "Heh…Hi, guys…"

"Pika," Pikachu nodded repeatedly, a large toothy grin also spread the whole of his mouth.

About half a second later, Morty and Eusine were both on top of Eevy, furiously throwing mach punches at her as she screamed helplessly, and Ash had left Pikachu to Sooney, Misty and Kayla, who were running around the room yelling at him. Morty and Eusine finally stood up, leaving Eevy flat-out and spiral-eyed on the floor, and Sooney dropped Pikachu straight to the floor with a _plunk_.

"Why…Did you do that?" Lisle twitched, her eyebrow bouncing up and down.

"It was an accident…" Eevy whined, "Honest…"

"Pi-ka…" Pikachu nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, well, as per the agreement in that _satanic_ tower," Morty glared down at his sister as she sat up, "_You_ can fix the accident."

Eevy drooped, "And how, exactly, am I supposed to get up there? It raised again. And now even _you two_ are too short," she crossed her arms and puffed, her eyes suddenly focusing across the room, "You two."

"Eh?" Will looked to his left at Lance and Lance to his right at Will, "_Us_?"

"Yes, you," Eevy nodded, "You should just be tall enough for me to reach."

They looked at each other again, "_Not a chance in hell_," they snorted.

Eevy sighed and shook her head, raising one arm and swinging it back behind her. Both the Elite Third and Fourth went flipping across the room, over everyone else, and crashed headlong into the floor, sliding a few feet on their faces to meet the Champion's feet. She crossed her arms and tapped her foot as Pikachu hopped up on her shoulder.

"Don't make me tell you twice," she grumbled as they looked cross-eyed up at her.

"Yes, ma'am," they gagged before dropping their faces back into the carpet, "Ugh…"

After getting to their feet, and it took a couple of tries I assure you, Lance and Will found that Brock made a very good brace so as to keep themselves steady. Especially since he was just ever so slightly too close to Vic and Luri than they cared to see him. Lance stood by the wall and awaited the next piece of the "tower" they were constructing.

Will looked over at him hesitantly, then back at Eevy, "C-Can't you go up next and then I go up on top of you…?" he murmured, sweatdropping slightly, "I don't trust him not to drop me…And you could always-"

"_Now_, William," Luri spat from behind him, causing him to scamper over to Lance and up to his shoulders with a tremendous burst of speed.

Eevy attempted to start up, but stepped back, "The one day you're not wearing a _belt_," she glared at Lance, who merely grinned stupidly.

"These are the pants I don't _need_ the belt for," he laughed crazily, attempting not to get kicked in the gut, "Ya' know…I'm _pudgy_ and all…"

She glared momentarily, shooting him a purely evil look, "Put your foot on the wall, you baka."

He did as he was told, wincing as she stepped up on his knee, "Hey! Come on! My leg doesn't bend that way!"

"No, but I'll make it so it does if you don't shut your mouth!" she hissed, stepping up on his shoulder, "_God_, you're a wimp."

"Am not."

"Are so."

"Am _not_."

"Are _so_."

"Could we not start?" Will asked quietly.

"Sorry, Will. At least _you_ wore a belt," Eevy huffed, wobbling side to side as she stood up on his shoulders.

"Oh, like I was supposed to know I'd need my belt so you could climb up to the ceiling," Lance growled, only to get a hair band in his face, "…Why thank you."

Eevy puffed her hair up and readjusted the mirrors again, the entire time listening to the whining Psychic Master beneath her as he wailed that his back was breaking. She finally dropped down in front of them, pulled her hair band off Lance's nose, stuck her hair back up, then proceeded to assist Will in getting down.

"All right," she turned to Mizu, "Let's try this…One…More…Time."

Mizu flipped the light around and once again watched the light shoot from one mirror to the next, to the next, and so on. When the last light hit the censor, each of the beams still traveling between mirrors shined a different color, then the entire room brightened, revealing the ceiling more clearly. 

"Ho-oh," Kayla blinked twice, pulling a pesky strand of hair from between her eyes.

"The lights trace the main lines of Ho-oh," Richie took off his cap and let his jaw hang open.

"That's not all they do," Jason twitched slightly, pointing to the wall.

"A door," Medira sighed, swaying side to side.

"_Oorai_!" Eevy spun around on one foot a few times and made a mad dash for the door, "I am _so_ leaving!"

Morty and Eusine sweatdropped and everyone else just kind of stared oddly, but she continued for the door. She scampered through, then stumbling to a stop, her feet almost slipping right out from under her. There was a loud, echoing, blood-chilling scream from the next room, then the most unmistakable laugh of the leader of Team Rocket.

"Did you hear that?" Misty looked around the room.

"Togi…" Togepi quivered.

"That was Eevy!" Lance shoved his brother and Ash out of the way and ran for the other end of the room, "_Evangelina_!"

*^~^*Part 6: End*^~^* 

_A/N: Yes...It was odd. But hey; my _dad_ helped write it. Anyway, I'm attempting to start a TAA fanlisting (a listing of fans, obviously), but I have to wait for approval from , so we'll have to wait and see. Either way, I hope you feel like joining when it opens, because if not a fanlisting, it'll be a plain old fanclub. Anyway...That's all for now. I'll try and get the next part done soon. [Usagi: So stop procrastinating.] Quiet, you... _

*^~^*Pro_V*^~^*  
.:O=Usagi-chan=O:.  
)>*Itachi-chan* -~+Spin-chan+~-  
-=O~The Other Pokemon~O=-  
**Next:** Special Edition: Laborious Labyrinth: Part 7 of 7.  
TAA Pokemon Of The Month: April 2003: The Aerial Pokemon Altaria 


	7. Giovanni may be evil but Eevy can be wor...

Laborious Labyrinth ~ Part 7 of 7  
By: Pro_V  
_A/N: IT LIIIVES! Err...Yeah...Anyway, here is the finally final chapter of this seemingly endless story. Next I have another multi-parter to do, but this one should be longer but posted quicker, since I have it most of the way planned out...**AND** the Official TAA Fanlisting has been fully created! Won't you please come and join? Itachi wants you to. [Itachi: *is shoved face-first into the screen* Sure! *sweatdrops*] The URL doesn't want to seem to post here in the file, so you can find it in my FanFiction.net bio...And you can come on by and join if you like TAA. Thanks! Now onward!_

Lance ran through the threshold to the next room, then stopping dead and looking around the pitch-black room. There was no noise, there was no light, there seemingly was no _life_. Morty and Eusine ran up behind him, followed soon after by everyone else. The only noise anyone heard was the flicking of a match, followed by a much larger flame flaring up in the corner. Only then did they hear the clanking of chain and the snapping of wires. Their gazes shifted off to the very lightly-lit figure to their right.

"Looking for this?"

Sakaki raised his left hand, thus motioning someone to light another flame to illuminate the captive dangling from her wrists from the ceiling. There was a series of angry gasps and some slight cursing before Giovanni made it a point to laugh loudly enough that it echoed.

"What? No comments? No congratulations? No curses to bestow upon me with your scary _Prophecy_?"

"You're a sadist!" Luri spat, "You let her go right now! Haven't you tortured us enough?!"

Sakaki raised his eyebrows and snickered, "No, actually, I haven't. I have yet to get the Legends I've been waiting for. It's too bad though," he looked off at Eevy, who hung next to him, "She won't live long enough after I've acquired them to tell me I was right and she was wrong, I was powerful and she was weak. It's a shame. She's quite pretty," he looked back at the purely _evil_ look practically catapulting its way into him from the Dragon Master's eyes, "Oh, what's the matter, my boy? Does that make you _angry_?"

"You, if Rubeus weren't who he is, would be the very incarnation of evil on this Earth, you twisted worm," Lance growled, not attempting to fight the way his eyes flared a deep blue, "And if you lay one _finger_ on her, it'll be just one more reason for me to rip your throat and spine out. _If_ you even have one of either."

"My-my," Giovanni crossed his arms, seemingly unfazed, "Don't we have spark?"

"You're gonna be seriously sparked if you don't let her go!" Ash spat, receiving an odd look from pretty much everyone.

"Ooh…_You're_ frightening," Sakaki laughed and shook his head, "Frighteningly _pathetic_, maybe."

There was a light, airy laugh from behind him, "And you're one to talk?" they looked up behind him, "Resorting to chains to keep me from _killing_ you?"

Giovanni turned and returned the demonic glare Evangelina aimed directly at him, dangling from the chains in the ceiling, "Awake so soon?" he asked, his left eye narrowing just a bit.

"What can I say?" she asked haughtily, shrugging as well as she could in her position, "I suffer from insomnia."

She bared her teeth while she snickered, as did he, before he turned quickly around and yelled into the shadows, "Tyson! You _told_ me she'd be unconscious for the time I needed!"

"Well, I-" Tyson started, backing slowly away as Giovanni stepped closer.

"Save your idiot excuses for when I feel like a good laugh," he growled, pounding his right fist in his left hand, "Now then, Mistress Hikoboshi-"

"Yes?" Eevy smiled evilly at him as he turned around.

"…We have a sense of humor tonight, don't we?" he crossed his arms and hissed quietly.

"_Let…Her…Go_," Morty clenched his fists at his sides, "_Now_."

"Oh, and what if I _don't_?" Sakaki questioned, putting one eyebrow up.

"Then we'll have to take her back from you!" Misty spat, Togepi chirping angrily in her arms.

"Ooh…Aren't we quite the forceful little lady?" Sakaki sniggered, "What say we make a little deal? Domino!"

"Yes, Master Sakaki?" the blond Rocket stepped quickly to his side.

"So…" he clapped his hands together, "As you can see, your Mistress is dangling from the ceiling here. But what you cannot see is that she is surrounded. Surrounded by some very _angry_ teammates who have quite the bone to pick with her. And up above her, we have some very sharp blades," he pointed up, "Which the chain she's hanging from runs directly between. Given that your Mistress here is quite a bit bigger than the chain and cord she's tied with…Well…You get the picture."

Eevy swallowed and looked _very_ carefully up, "Oh…My God," she suddenly went very pale and very silent and limp.

"Eevy!" Kayla shrieked, shooting up straight before fainting.

"So here's the deal," Giovanni crossed his arms, "Drop all of your Pokemon and get her down without leaving the box painted on the floor and I'll let her go. _Or_…You could leave without her."

"You're insane!" Jason barked, pushing to the front, "If you kill her, you'll _never_ get the Legends!"

"Actually, I would. The Bell is already reacting to her little predicament," he motioned off at Eevy, "And with that comes Legendary Beasts, Birds and Psychics to protect her."

The faint glowing from inside Eevy's shirt started getting brighter as she was jolted closer to the ceiling, "Anyone for chopped trainer?" Zanna asked, sitting on the floor beneath the Champion Mistress.

"Do we get salad dressing with that?" Rion grinned, laying beside her sister, "Ta-tah!"

Eevy hissed down at them, then looked upward, "Oh God…" she looked down and shook her head side to side, "Let it go, guys! Just let it go!" she kicked furiously, cracking Buson right in the face, "He's giving you the chance to run; take it and get out of here!"

"We can't leave you!" Sooney shrieked, attempting to jump over Tracey as he held her off, "Eevy!"

"_Get out of here_!" Eevy barked, then glaring over her shoulder, "What're _you_ laughing at?!"

Mondo immediately quieted and Eevy looked back, only to watch a belt containing six Poke'Balls slide out of the crowd on the floor and to Giovanni's feet. More belts followed, as well as handfuls of Poke'Balls rolling out in threes and fours. She choked as Pikachu and Togepi came wondering out on foot and sat slowly down by the pile that had accumulated, then clenched her teeth when a green and orange Rage Ball came rolling, on its own, from Lance's feet.

"_No_!" she started flailing aimlessly, "No-No-No-_NO_!" she choked as she was jolted twice more closer to the ceiling.

Jessie and James hurried over, gathering up the Poke'Balls and disappearing into the shadows. Butch and Cassidy grabbed Pikachu and Togepi, ignoring their crying, and ran off as well. Eevy would have slapped her own forehead, then everyone else's, had she been able to. When Jessie and James and Butch and Cassidy returned, Eevy was again pulled up.

"Well…There's step one," Giovanni crossed his arms, "Better figure out how to save her now. Unless you'd like to have her torn to shreds."

*^~^**^~^*

Kudou had lost track of how long he'd been crammed between one of the Officer Jennies and another quite perturbed-looking officer. Jay was following Robin who was following Kestrel who seemed to be the most experienced pilot of the trio, despite the fact that he had a redhead clinging to him the entire time.

"Hey, Jay? Does Kudou know _where_ in Machete the blimp landed? We're getting closer to the border to Hokubu now," Kestrel tapped his finger on the radio whilst waiting, but received no answer, "Jay?"

Rachel grabbed the headgear off Jay's head, finding a pair of headphones hidden within them, "_Get with the program_!" she yelled in her ear.

"SORRY!" Jay waved both hands, then fumbled for the radio, "Um…Professor Hitotsu?"

"Yes?" Kudou asked, peeking forward around the officer to his right side.

"Do you know where about in Machete the blimp landed?" Jay questioned, ignoring that her brother was scolding her from the radio she still held, "We're getting closer and need to know."

"I…Have no idea," he choked, "I could try and find out."

"Please do," Kestrel sighed, "Otherwise we'll be stuck hovering over Machete all day."

Kudou stretched, painfully, for his laptop and popped it open, "Um…Please don't kill me, but could you do me another favor?"

His assistant's eyes narrowed slowly, "Do I get the rest of the week off?" she asked, putting one eyebrow up.

"…Deal."

"Whatever you say, Professor," she laughed evilly, "What do I have to do now?"

"Can you try and find out where the blimp landed in Machete?" he scratched the back of his head, "Can you do that?"

"I can," she spun her own laptop over, "All I have to do is find her 'Dex number again, find out how long after the last recorded scan it went offline, then figure out where in Machete that would be."

Jenny leaned over Kudou's shoulder, "You know…I could arrest you both for this."

"Do you _really_ want to do that?" Kudou asked, growing slightly nervous.

Jenny sat back and touched her index and middle fingers to the rose-shaped patch on her shirt, "No."

*^~^**^~^*

"Hurry now!" Bashou chided from just out of Lance's reach, "She's getting closer to the ceiling!"

"Shut your mouth!" Vic growled, jumping up and down in the back.

"_Yeah_!" her twin put in quickly.

"What do we do?! What do we do?!" Sooney ran around and around in circles around Tracey, "What if we can't stop her from going up or the blades from spinning and she actually _does_ get all chopped to bits and…"

No one attempted to stop her, as they were all too busy thinking about how to stop the blades Eevy was just yanked even closer to, "We've got to stop the blades!" Tracey called over Sooney as she ran around in front of him.

"But if we stop the blades, she'll still get pulled up. She'll get her wrists pulled off anyway!" Luri jumped up and down, "What are we gonna do?!"

"You're going to give up," Clyde waved at them from the side, "And let what happens happen."

"Of course; what else could you do?" Bonnie grinned, making purely teasing faces from beside her partner, "_Nothing_!"

"_Quiet_!" Mizu spat, stomping toward the edge of the square, "Shut your mouths before I _do_ leave this box and rip your lungs out!"

"I'll do it for her if I have to!" Lisle waved her first over her head from beside Mizu.

Morty examined every little bit of the blades and chains that he could, "What if we jam it somehow?" he looked back at everyone, "Jam the chain so it can't raise?"

"How? And with what?" Eusine questioned, raising his hands and shrugging, "We can't get to it to do anything."

"Maybe not," Lance reached back and waved at them, looking up as Eevy was pulled closer, "Did anybody keep their belt?"

"I did," Will threw his over everyone's heads.

"Oh, this looks interesting," Cassidy snickered from the corner, arms crossed.

"Sure does. Wonder what they'll try next," Butch sat at her feet, shaking his head.

"Does anyone have an empty Poke'Ball?" Lance asked, looking everyone over, "Anybody?"

"I've got one," Brock handed his right over Ash's head, knocking his red and white cap down over his eyes.

"Well…I've got one shot," he put the Poke'Ball in the belt and started swinging, "Let's hope I hit my mark."

"Let's hope your aim is better than your idea," Medira grunted from a few feet back in the group.

"Why don't you just get out of here?!" Eevy barked, swinging side to side.

"Just shut up and duck!" Lance puffed, flinging the grey Poke'Ball up at her.

"AH!" she dropped her head and shrieked.

There was a loud pop, a crack, and the grinding of metal. A few sparks from above showered downward and Eevy opened her right eye, peeking slowly upward. Her jaw dropped slightly, as the Poke'Ball was stuck fast in the opening that the chain she was hanging on was strung through, thus the chain was pinned and the blades screeched to a halt. She blinked twice, then shouted and started cheering. Domino fell right over, as did most of the other Rockets, and Giovanni started blurting profanities.

"Yay, big brother!" Vic clapped, draping herself over Lance's shoulders, "Yay-Yay-Yay!"

"Eevy, are you OK?!" Medira called up at her, "You didn't get hurt, did you?"

"No, I'm fine!" Eevy nodded, looking over at Sakaki, "But _he_ won't be."

"Ooh…I am frightened now," he shook his head, "You underestimate me, Miss Hikoboshi. And besides; you're not free yet. You're still chained. Trust me; you'll lose yet, and then I'll be rid of you forever. After, that is, my _decrepit team of losers and slackers_ finish speaking with you about your past injustices against them."

Eevy's eyes narrowed, "_You're_ the only scum around here giving them _injustices_!" she bit back, paying the Rockets surrounding her no mind as she spit at him.

He moved to the side so as she missed, "You've got quite a bit of fire left in you, considering you're in no condition to be making such snide remarks. And when we're through with you and your friends, I'm sure we'll see eye-to-eye."

"Go to hell," she gnarled quietly.

"I don't think so."

She swung back of her own free will, then flipped up and wrapped the chain around her right ankle, "You can think what you want. But if you want the power you're looking for, you'll have to go through me to get it," she put all her force into her wrists and forced them farther and farther apart, "And, Sakaki my friend, you've got a long way to go."

There was a loud _snap_ as the wire around her wrists snapped, then a louder clatter as pieces of chain hit the floor and rolled away. Eevy twirled the chain around one arm and unwrapped her foot, hanging down in front of Giovanni and glaring at him. He mirrored her angry stare, then backed up a few steps.

"She's yours."

Eevy looked off to the left and swung forward merely seconds early enough to avoid Tyson running at her. She spun around and kicked off the wall, swinging over Bashou and grasping a pipe running on the opposite wall. When she turned and looked back and down, there were numerous Rockets waiting below for her. She raised both eyebrows, then smiled.

"Ooh…A fanclub," she waved down at them, "Then I guess I should meet them."

Mondo bent back as she swung over him, then turned around and pointed at her, laughing evilly. When again he looked at her, all he saw was both of her high-heeled boots connecting with his face. He rolled backwards, tumbling down a set of steps and landing on the floor a few inches outside the box everyone was standing in. Luri sniggered and started poking him, as did Sooney and Misty and Kayla. Eevy spun around, running down off the wall she'd hit, and then ran up Jaz's stomach and kicking the side of his head. He spun all the way around, then fell over on top of Mondo. She climbed up a bit and swung for Tyson, hooking her heels around his neck and throwing him off into a wall. When she spun around, Clyde was standing in front of her, as if to be a blockade of some sort.

"You _must_ be kidding," Eevy sighed, shaking her head, "Oh well…Have it your way."

As she unwrapped her arm from the chain, he punched at her, but she was already halfway up to the ceiling again. He growled at her and placed his hands on his hips.

"What's the matter? Afraid I'll get you?" he asked haughtily.

"Oh, that was _stupid_…" Medira shook her head and looked away.

Eevy came sliding down the chain and left some nice footprints on the top of Clyde's head, "Nyaa!" she grinned evilly, throwing a long akanbe his way.

"Eevy, watch it!" Ash called off to her.

She turned and hopped up and swept away, "Well, _hello_!" she waved back at Bashou and Buson, who had both been attempting to jump her, "Might I ask what it is I can do for _you_ today?"

"Lose peacefully?" Bashou shrugged.

"Die easily?" Buson nodded.

The next thing they knew, Eevy had re-tied her right leg into the chain and swung down, merely for the pure purpose of slamming their heads together and watching them drop. She glared off toward James and Butch, who both turned and ran off, then released herself and landed on one knee on the floor in front of Sakaki. She stood slowly up and glared at him.

"Impressive," Giovanni admitted, carefully patting the top of his Persian's head, "Though I'm afraid it wasn't quite as impressive as I'd hoped," he looked up at her and grinned, "_Amatsubikei_."

Eevy looked down at her necklace at the bright white flash from the Crystal Bell. She took it in both hands and turned away from him, attempting to cram the power emerging from it back in. When the glow faded, she turned back to Giovanni and took a step forward.

"How do you know about the spirit of the Bell?!" she demanded, but received no answer, "Answer me! _Answer me_!"

"I have no reason to answer you anything," he answered quietly, "But since you'll not make it out of here alive, I find no harm in telling you how. Professor Sebastian and Professor Nanba have been researching your little _Prophecy_ for quite some time. Many years, actually," he looked off at Lance, who growled back, "Since I once saw your Dragon Master there speak with Raikou. How old were you then, _boy_? _Seven_?" Lance just looked away as Eevy looked back at him, "And then I traced it all to _you_. And your most _loyal_, _loving_, _caring_ Divine. The Divine of Fire, Water, Earth, Air and Shadows. And _you_. Of Light."

The step Eevy had taken toward him she quickly lost, then turned and ran down the three stairs and over to the crowd, "Eevy!" Morty and Eusine caught her as she launched herself at them.

"Eva!" Kayla clapped and hopped up and down, grabbing onto all three of them.

When Eevy finally managed to yank herself away from Kayla, she turned to Lance, "_Why_ didn't you tell me?"

"There!" Will jammed his way forward, "We've got her out of there, now fork over our Pokemon and let us out!"

Giovanni crossed his arms and looked down, slowly shaking his head, "Not likely. _That_ was not the deal," he looked off at Jen and Wendie, who both started turning something on the wall.

Eevy felt something shoot up and catch her arm, causing her to stumble away. After examining the cattily cuts on her arm, she looked off at the grinning Meowth, then back to everyone else. From the floor came thick metal bars, raising a good four feet above her head. From the ceiling then dropped a metal panel, Zanna standing at one corner, Rion at another, Jessie at another and Cassidy at the last. They hopped down, bringing a chain from each corner off to the wall and hooking it in. Jen and Wendie finally stopped turning the crank, heaving repeatedly.

Lisle took a bar in each hand and started kicking them, "What's the big idea?! You can't cage us in like this!"

"Let us out of here!" Misty barked, pushing on the top, "You said you'd let us out!"

"No, I said if you could save her, I'd let _her_ go. I never said anything about the rest of you," Sakaki slid his hands into his pockets and looked to the right and up, where Domino pulled a round metal door off to the side, revealing daylight down onto a ladder, "And if she wishes to go…She can. But she's not taking you."

Eevy stood on the outside of the "cage", looking between Giovanni and those he had trapped. Back and forth, back and forth her vision went. She was seemingly unable to choose. If she left, she had a chance of getting out and finding somebody to stop this, but if she left, she'd be leaving everyone alone with the psychotic leader of Team Rocket and his minions. There was a tug to the back of her shirt and she slowly turned around.

"Go, Evangelina," Lance nodded when she looked back, "Please."

She looked from him to Kayla, "Please, Eva. If you go, you can keep the Prophecy going without us."

"Go, Eevy, please," Ash fiddled with his cap in his hands, "Please?"

"Sis, please go," Morty gripped one of the bars.

"Run, cous," Eusine smirked weakly, "Just so we know you're OK."

"Come on, Eevy," Luri waved at her, "We'll see ya'."

"Get out of here, Eevy," Will nodded, "Go."

"Keep Rubeus in check," Jason grinned stupidly.

Lance patted her shoulder, but she pushed his hand away, "_I can't_," she murmured quietly, smiling sadly.

"Eevy…Eevy, no!" Medira reached through the bars and tried to grab her, but she was already walking away.

"Eevy, please go!" Sooney and Tracey both stretched after her.

Eevy looked up behind Sakaki and narrowed her eyes, blocking all the yelling from behind her, and drew something dark mossy green off the back of the chair behind Giovanni. She took the cloak, representing his place a Gym Leader, and shook it out straight. He watched her strangely until she raised it…And tore it in half. He shot to his feet and everyone around them gasped as she let it slip to the floor by her feet.

"If you want to run this team, then you will _not_ run one of my Gyms," Eevy spat lowly, her fists shaking at her side, "And if you wanna fight," a white line shot from her right hand, widening in spots to make a sharp blade, "Then let's get to it."

Giovanni laughed evilly, "Domino."

The blond came running from Eevy's left, causing her to jump back to the right, bringing the sword of light down to block Domino's swinging black tulip. Domino struck and swung, as did Eevy, but neither scored a hit. Domino jumped up and swung her tulip down with both hands. Eevy swung her blade up and blocked it, forcing her away and throwing her off.

Giovanni laughed again, "I'm amazed you can summon that much of the Prophecy's power without calling your second soul, Mistress," he watched Eevy back past, dodging Domino's strikes, "Well done. But can you do two things at once?"

Eevy looked off at him, only to be struck in the face by the stem of Domino's tulip. She stepped back and winced, but looked off at the ground in the "cage" when she heard them scream. Between cringing from the cutting end of Domino's attacks, she noticed that the chains were no longer hooked on the walls from the corners of the top and that the roof was literally _resting_ in their hands.

"You're crushing them!" she hissed.

"_I know_!" Giovanni clapped, "Very good observation! Can _you_ save _them_ now?"

As she was about to curse him out, the flower end of Domino's tulip hit the side of her head, knocking her right off her feet. Her sword went flipping off to the side, imbedding itself in the floor, then flickered away. Eevy groaned and sat up, only to get a sparking tulip in her face.

"My tulip runs on a unique dark energy," Domino grinned, "So I can still zap you, even with the ionizing radiation waves."

"Oh yeah?" Eevy spat, grabbing just below the tulip in both hands and pushing it up, "Not technically."

Domino growled and fired repeated jolts of energy at her, but got nothing out of her; not even a whimper, "How?! _How_ are you doing that?!"

"I'm of Light, remember?" she smirked, sitting up whilst pushing, then getting to one knee, "And now that I've started to activate that ability, my Light wards off your dark energy waves. Shadows cannot live without Light, but Light will always see Shadows, even on the sun," she finally got to her feet, "And you…You'll be seeing _lots_ of shadows," she threw her away with a quick kick dealt to her chest.

"_Eevy_!" Lisle shrieked, "Go! Go now!"

"I'm not going to let you get turned into pancakes!" Eevy barked, now seeing that even Lance was bent down, attempting to push the top up and away, "Oh God…"

"Mizu, sit down," Eusine ordered, fighting his way over to her and holding his own bit of weight up, "Please, sit down."

Mizu sat and choked a few breaths and Eevy looked side to side, "There's got to be something…" she thought to herself, "Wait…What were Jen and Wendie doing before? Something by the wall back there," she squinted and saw what appeared to be a crank, right beside the wall, "Bingo."

"Sir!" Mondo came running from the side, "There are three semi-sized planes above us! All marked with rainbows!"

Eevy looked quickly back and everyone else strained to look up, "…Shoot them down," Giovanni ordered.

Eevy gasped, then began to run around one side of the "cage", only to see Zanna and Rion waiting there for her. When she ran around to the other side, Bashou and Buson were there. She backed up and growled, then ran up to the bars.

"Can you guys handle a little more weight?"

"Oh, sure!" Ash gagged, "Just pack it on there, Eevy…"

Not that she took him seriously, but Domino was flailing at her from her right side, so Eevy scrambled up on the roof of the "cage" and started running. Each step she took, she heard another grunt, but then heard the clomp of boots behind her. She looked back and saw Domino running at her, tulip raring to go. Eevy sprang back as Domino jabbed, ducked as she swung over and jumped as she swung under. Those below them were standing there heaving, their eyes going wide each time someone took a heavier step. Giovanni, finding this quite entertaining, sat in his chair and laughed as Bonnie and Clyde climbed up on top of the "cage", then laughed harder as Bashou, Buson, Zanna and Rion started to follow. Eevy turned and made a mad-dash for the other end of the roof, jumping down and stumbling for the crank. Jen dove at her from ahead, but Eevy grabbed her collar and yanked her down over the crank, thus turning it and taking some of the weight off her friends. She pushed Jen off and turned it again on her own, taking more away, but Domino shot black energy at her and made her lose her grip. The weight was released and shook the roof, throwing Bashou, Rion, Zanna and Buson off and to the floor. Bonnie and Clyde seemingly had disappeared. Domino, upon seeing Eevy start to turn the crank again and feeling the roof rise a few feet, threw her tulip stem-first at her. Eevy backed up and the tulip punctured the gears of the crank, jamming it.

"_Nice_ shot," Eevy nodded, grinning sadistically at Domino before the blond lunged at her, "Woah!"

After trying, a few times, to retrieve her tulip staff, Domino turned and ran at Eevy tulip-free. Without her weapon, she wasn't any real type of opponent Eevy had to worry about. She dodged left to right and Domino gnarled at her repeatedly, but when she reached the wall, she slid to the left and watched the Rocket crash headlong into the hard stone wall.

"You are fast, weed-hopper," Eevy put both hands together and bowed slightly as Domino quivered to her hands and knees, "But harbor little sense."

"Eevy!" Richie called, still bent and holding the top up, "The front end is still dropping!"

"Aiya?!" Eevy looked left to right, "There must be another crank. But where is it?" she looked all around, "This one's over here and controls this end, so the other would be over there," she looked quickly up at Giovanni, spying Bonnie and Clyde hovering behind him at the wall, "Ah-hah."

*^~^**^~^*

"Who's shooting at us and from where?!" Jay shrieked over the rumbling of _something_ from the ground below them.

"We've gotta get outta here before they _actually_ manage to hit us!" Robin shouted, pulling up hard.

"You _will not_ run!" Kestrel barked at them, "We're finishing this job; end of story!"

"But, Kestrel…" Yui poked his shoulder, "We could get shot down…"

"Not likely," he shook his head, pointing out the window.

A Jenny poked her head over his shoulder and watched a Pokemon flapping along in front, "What…?"

"Crobat!" he called, "Find whoever that is, now!"

"Ledian, you too!" Robin cheered.

"Fearow, go help them!" Jay clapped, then grabbing back onto the controls.

"…Are they sane?" Kudou asked quietly.

"I'm beginning to wonder now myself…" Rachel murmured.

Jay shrieked as her Fearow went spiraling toward the ground, a few feathers missing, "OK! Now I'm angry!" she flicked something open on the armrest beside her, "All of you, get out there!"

"Ehh…?" Kudou peeked out the window, watching four Spearow and another Fearow speed away, "No, no, they are not sane…"

*^~^**^~^*

Eevy dove and hit the floor, covering the back of her head with her arms as Tyson jumped her. She scrambled to her feet, as he'd fallen right over her head, and ran over top of him. As she got to the top of the stairs, heading at Bonnie and Clyde, Jen's Persian decided that he'd "make himself useful" as his master had been telling him and took a swipe at her. She turned and saw Giovanni's Persian making her move as well. Smiling nastily, she stepped to the side and watched the two cats crash headfirst into each other. Giovanni crossed his arms and shook his head, not moving even an inch.

"Not bad…" he laughed, "For a _woman_."

She shot him a filthy look, then kept going. Bonnie slid in between Eevy and Clyde, but why would that stop the Champion Mistress? Skimming down on one knee for leverage, she shifted her weight and launched right over the Executive's head. When Bonnie turned around to look, Eevy was standing over Clyde, pivoting and kicking her in the face. Sakaki got to his feet, but Eevy made good use of the pocketknife she found in Clyde's pocket and jammed the second crank after turning it back.

"Looks like you're a bit smarter than I had first thought," he put his hands in his pockets, "But you still need to get them out of there. And how will you do it?"

"I have my ways," she replied knowingly, then running past him.

Sakaki watched her run, uncaring for a time, but upon seeing what she was planning to do, his eyes widened, "Stop her! All of you! Stop her now!"

When no one opted to help, he saw that everyone he'd had with him was on the floor, either unconscious or unable to stand. He growled as Eevy pulled her belt off, realizing for the first time that her Poke'Balls were missing, and buckled it on one of the bars of the "cage". Rockets finally started standing and Sakaki ordered them to tear her apart if they had to. Eevy looked back, spying only Bashou and Buson heading her way. She strung the belt around the inside of the corner bars and then ran around to the front and started pulling. The bar she had it buckled around began to bow, the bar it was run around began to actually snap and the very corner bar started to slide out of whack. After a few more moments of pulling, the bars cracked, snapped, and fell away, leaving the corner wide open. Sakaki roared as Eevy picked one of the bars up from the floor and made no mistake in clubbing Bashou in the head with it and jabbing Buson's gut. One by one, the group slowly began exiting.

Giovanni started to descend the stairs and Eevy turned back to everyone else, "Go. Now," she ordered, "I can take care of him alone, then get the Pokemon and come out."

"We can't leave you here!" Misty reached for her as Sooney and Lisle started pulling her away.

"Good luck, Eva," Kayla gripped her wrist, then was dragged away by Richie.

"We'll be waiting for you," Eusine placed a hand on her back, then ran to get Mizu.

"Come out safe, baby sister," Morty patted her head, then dashed away before she could smack him.

"Be careful, Evangelina," Lance took and squeezed her hand, though she offered no reaction, and was then "escorted" out by his sister.

"I'm always careful."

Once they were all headed for the ladder, Eevy looked back at Sakaki, who now had one of the bars in his hands, tapping it on his right palm, "How very touching."

"Don't mock me," Eevy spat, "Let's just get to it."

When metal connected to metal, most of those leaving stopped and looked back. They paused, watching metal posts swinging and crashing into each other, then saw Eevy look directly at them before yelling for them to go. They turned and continued climbing up to the now very faint light of day. They heard a deep shout and stopped again, this time finding Eevy jabbing Giovanni directly in the stomach, then turning around and whipping the back of his neck. She turned to them again, barking another order for them to leave, but was cut off when Sakaki knocked the back of her knees. She fell flat on her face, rushing to sit up, but couldn't find her weapon. She rolled backwards twice, but on the third one rolled right off the platform. She sat up, but had no time to react. At her shout, everyone stopped again. Like a freeze frame on a screen, they saw her knocked away and falling to her right. She dropped and winced, fighting to sit up.

"Eevy!" Morty stretched back down to the ladder, but Lisle dragged him back up.

"Eva!" Eusine tried to jump off the ladder, but Mizu pushed him up father.

"Evangelina!" Lance, who was on the bottom, attempted the run, but Vic grabbed his cloak and dragged him along, "No, Vic! Victoria, let me go! I've got to help her!"

"Come on!" Victor grabbed him as he got to the top and pulled him out, "She wants us to go, so _let's go_!" he reached in and shut the door.

"Looks like they've abandoned you," Giovanni snickered, "I feel so bad for you."

"They _did not_ abandon me," Eevy hissed, glaring up at him, "They did only as I asked."

"And if I ask you to forfeit, will you do it?"

"In your dreams I might."

"Have it your way then," he brought the pole above his head and swung it directly down at her.

He was grinning until he saw she had blocked it, merely with her right forearm. She threw it away, still on her knees, and punched him back. She sprang to her feet as he recoiled, furiously hitting him, then spun around and kicked him down. Down so far, he fell face-first to the floor. As he shot up, he found his own rail pointed at his forehead. He glanced behind her, finding Rockets running for the exits. And within seconds…They were alone.

"Looks like they've abandoned you," she smiled nastily, "I feel so bad for you."

"You've not won yet. No one has. Or ever will," he heaved a few breaths.

She remained unmoved, "You're alone now. No one to save you. You wanted the Legends then?" she smirked at the way he paled as her Bell started glowing, "Then by all means…Take them."

"_No_!"

*^~^**^~^*

Dodging trees and bushes and the occasional lowly Rockets, those Eevy had told to leave ran frantically through Machete Forest, searching for the flat piece of land where the blimps descended into the lab. They heard propellers spinning and knew they were closer than they would think by the thickness of the trees. As they continued to move, the ground began to shake. A few seconds later, those farther behind were thrown into the air. Kestrel and his sisters were thoroughly shaken about, as was everyone in their planes, when a large column of pure white broke from the ground and shot upward. Mondo and the others who had been openly firing at the planes were thrown a good twenty feet away from their original places and then passed by those running.

Numerous smaller blasts of white erupted from the ground in various places. When everyone finally found the open ground, they started climbing in with whichever pilot was closest and dropping to sit on the floor. Kudou and Rachel searched the crowd for Eevy, but never saw her. As Lance was forced onto Jay's plane, a series of white blasts shot from the earth, lining their way right at them.

"Off the ground, _now_!" Kestrel ordered, not waiting for one of the Jennies to slam the door shut before lifting off.

Jay and Robin did the same, and when the light hit the edge of the platform the blimps used to descend, it traced the rectangular outline. Slowly it just barely shot up from around it…But when both ends of the light connected…There was a loud rumbling, then an immense explosion. The gate disintegrated and the entire opening was filled with a blinding light. Yui ducked down behind Kestrel, who turned quickly away, and Jay and Robin just kind of sat there staring.

"…Pretty…" Rachel blinked, raising one eyebrow.

"_Lance_!" Vic grabbed his shoulders as he rushed over to the door, "What are you doing?!"

"Evangelina's still in there!" he flailed, attempting to get away from her, "We've got to get her out!"

"…What's that?" Brock asked quietly, pointing out the window.

Others crammed their way to the windows themselves, then spying what appeared to be a light shadow rising within the light. From each side of this strange brightness broke what appeared to be a very colorful wing. When whatever it was reached the top of the column, it emerged with a loud shriek and the crackling of fire. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet…Every color imaginable flooded the air for a mere second, then nothing but brightly colored feathers.

"The Rainbow Winged Phoenix!" Morty pressed his face against the glass as Lisle screamed for joy and squeezed his waist.

"Ho-oh has returned…For real this time," in the window next to him, Eusine did the same as Mizu stood back clapping.

"What's on its back?" Ash asked, peeking out the bottom of the window Misty was in.

"…That's Eevy!" Richie gaped, falling over to his left and nearly decking Kayla.

Lance shoved numerous people from his way to look, as did Will and Jason and Luri and Medira. Eevy gripped some of the bright orange-red feathers of Ho-oh's back with one hand and held the handle of a black and silver box in the other, the whole while not once looking away from Ho-oh. He looked back at her, eyes bright, and straightened to allow her to relax on his back. A clap of thunder sounded, a streak of lightning firing from the sky. When it hit the ground, two yellow figures formed from it; one with wings, the other with a jagged tail. A rush of hot air from the east carried bits of fire and drew out two figures of the same description. From the north came a spinning wind, spiraling out two of the same. From the south buzzed an orb of pink, an orb of aqua, and a larger one of purple. Down from the sky came a dragon-like figure, shining silver. Eevy waved at two of the planes, the looked in the window at Lance. She grinned and gave a firm thumb's up, causing Kayla to scream and run around cheering.

Yui bounced up and down, pointing repeatedly and jolting Kestrel around, "Look, Kessy, look!"

"I see…Really…I see," he nodded stiffly between her jumps.

"Thank you, Ho-oh," Eevy moved carefully up and placed her hand on his head, "You were of great help."

"I will come for you whenever you are in need," the bird nodded, "But I must go now; return to my place in the heavens. Keep the Guardians with you."

Lugia hovered above, so she reached up and hoisted herself up. Ho-oh took the handle of the box she had in her beak and gave it to her, then burst with brightly colored lights and was gone. Lugia carried her carefully over to the door of Jay's plane and flew with it as Kudou opened the door and waved.

"Heh…Hi, Eevy!" he smiled stupidly, "Er…How's things?"

"Kudou!" Eevy clapped, sliding off Lugia's side and into the plane, "HIYA, Kudou!"

"Your box, Angel," Lugia placed it behind her.

"Thanks," she waved her hand as he dropped to the ground beside the Birds and Beasts, "Here, guys," she ran in and popped the box open.

"Pika-chuu!" Pikachu lunged out and scampered under everyone's feet.

"Pikachu!" Ash grabbed him from the top of his head and spun around.

"Togepi!" Misty ran forward and picked the Egg up, "My sweet little Togepi!"

Eevy reached into the bottom of the box and plucked a certain one out as everyone began to dig, "Draco," she pulled Lance's coat open and put the Poke'Ball in his coat pocket, "See? I was careful."

He just stared at her a moment, then began to grin before Morty called his sister's attention, "Hey, Eevy…There's somebody here who wants to speak with you."

"Eev?" a floppy-eared head popped out from between Morty and Eusine, "Eevee!"

"Vovo!" Eevy clapped three times, eyes registering stars, then even more when five more heads appeared, "My boys! Ooh! My sweet-sweet chou-kawaii boys!"

She screeched giddily as they hopped out to her, "I've been nixed for puppy/bunny/cat things…?" Lance murmured quietly behind her.

"Eev…"

Lance looked carefully down to his side, "Uh…Oh…AH!" he ran past as Vovo chomped down on his leg, "AHH! It's got me! Get it off! _Get it off_!"

*^~^**^~^*

Mondo pulled his face from the dirt, hacking a bit, "Oh boy…" he looked around, spotting other Rockets laid out on the ground around him, "Eek! I'd better get out of here before somebody comes…"

As he turned around, he came eye-to-eye with a tall Tiger Pokemon who was laying down beside him and glaring at him, "Going somewhere?" Raikou asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Eh…?" Mondo looked carefully upward, spotting a very angry cop cracking his knuckles, "…Eekers."

He screeched and Eevy grinned evilly as Raikou pranced out of the trees, dragging him along with his wrist in his mouth, "Well, that's the last one," she folded her arms behind her head.

"You…" Giovanni glared as one of the Jennies shoved him into one of the newly arrived trucks with Bonnie and Clyde, "I _will_ get out of this and I _will_ get you."

"Get in there, dirt bag!" Jenny spat, pushing his head down and kicking him in.

Eevy just cocked an eyebrow before Morty draped himself on her from behind, "My little baby sister! She called Ho-oh! She saved the day!"

"Get off!" she choked out while laughing hysterically.

Eusine then piled on top of Morty, "My little baby cousin! She called Ho-oh! She saved the day!"

"Hey!" Eevy flailed under them, dropping to the ground, "Come on; cut it out!"

They stood up and giggled as they walked away and Will walked up, "You did extremely well."

"Sure did!" Luri clapped, popping up behind him and hanging from his shoulders.

"Yeah. Thanks, Eevy," Jason patted Sapphire's head, "You saved us and our Pokemon."

"And most likely a lot more people Sakaki would have been after," Medira nodded, hugging Flamedance, "But how did you summon the Legends without them being captured?"

"Right before I did, all the other Rockets had run out, leaving only Giovanni and I. He had no Pokemon and no one to activate the machinery that could have been used to stop the Legends. There was no way for him to do it," Eevy shrugged, "His plan wasn't as perfect as he thought."

"Guess not," Richie murmured as Kayla and Sooney flew past.

"Eevy-Eevy-Eevy-Eevy!" they both chirped, "You're okie dokie!"

"Yeah…I am…" she choked before they let go and ran at Richie and Tracey.

Tracey drummed his fingers on the ground as Sooney knocked him over, "_Must you_?"

"Yeppers!" she smiled crazily.

"I was afraid of that."

"Pika! Pikachu!" Pikachu latched onto Eevy's face and zapped her happily, "PIKA!"

She pried him off as she streamed slightly, then sweatdropping, "Yes, you're very welcome, Pikachu. You too, Togepi," she patted the Egg Pokemon's head as she hugged her knee, "And _you_ too, Sparky," she grinned as Richie's Pikachu hopped up on the top of her head.

All three Pokemon ran back to their masters, who waved at Eevy and thanked her from a distance, which Misty held Brock away at. Vic was squealing over her Dragonite, as was Victor over his, then both waved at Eevy as well. Mizu blew her a kiss and winked, then latched onto Eusine, who patted her head. Lisle ran around with her Pokemon, running around Eevy and clapping, then rushing away. Kudou stood over Eevy.

"I'm glad you're OK, Eva," he nodded, smiling wide.

"Well, I'm glad I'm OK too," she grinned, "Thanks for coming, Kudou. Rachel called you? And how'd you find us?"

"Yeah, she called," he pointed off toward the Rainbow League's messenger as she jumped up and down with her Vaporeon, "And my assistant found you, actually. Tracking your Poke'Dex," he held out his laptop.

"Hi," Eevy waved at the screen, "Thanks so much for helping us. I'll find a way to repay you somehow."

"Right…" Kudou's assistant nodded, "But I'm afraid I must be going. Kudou's given me the rest of the week off," she waved and smiled, "Good bye, Mistress. See you later, Professor," she hung up and spun around in her chair, a Houndour hopping up into her lap and rubbing the top of its head against her chin, "Well, Sombra…We did good, I think. Maybe the Professor will let us have a few days off next week too, so we can get a full week's vacation."

"Dour!" Sombra agreed.

"Hiya!" Yui banged Kudou out of the way, "Hello, Mistress!"

"Hi, Yui!" Eevy waved back as Kestrel slumped up behind Yui and his sisters, "Thanks for getting here, you guys. That was an immense help."

"Right," Kestrel nodded, "But you owe us now, you know."

"Suuure I do," Eevy nodded before Jay and Robin and Yui latched onto her, though she was still sitting on the ground, "Thank you, ladies."

"We're just happy you're OK," Robin grinned, squeezing her arm.

"Yeah, you're the best Champion yet," Jay acknowledged, holding her other arm.

"Uh huh," Yui nodded, constricting her waist.

"OK, girls, let's leave her alone," Kestrel tugged them off one by one, "She's had a long day and maybe if we're careful and behave she'll let us use _her_ expense account today."

"You little rat…" Eevy glared as he pulled the three of them away.

Lance stepped up in front of her, causing her to look up, "Feeling all right?"

"Feel fine," she nodded, taking his hand as he helped her up, "How about you?"

"Much better," he tugged her along, "So…When we get home…Can I have one of the muffins Delia sent you?"

"NO CHANCE!"

"Aww…You're so mean!"

"I save your rear-end and you call me _mean_?!"  


She started throwing profanities his way as he ran. Some of the Legends sweatdropped as she chased him around, waving her fists, and he scrambled away from her, wailing for her to please leave him alone. Ash laughed hysterically, as she finally caught him and sat on him, furiously poking him in the stomach. 

"AHH! AHH! MERCY! MERCY!" he flailed, attempting to push her off.

"Big brother…You deserve that," Vic shook her head, sweatdropping slightly.

"Come on! Somebody get her off! Help! Help! No! Don't hurt me! Please don't hurt me! Spare my pitiful life! Somebody! Anybody! HELP!"

"Get back here! I'm not done avenging Ashura yet!"

Raikou dropped his head, "And Ho-oh chose this woman to house all the power of what is true…"

"Sometimes I pity his poor judgement," Zapdos muttered.

"Want to go to a movie then, now that you've stopped pummeling me? Or dinner?"

"Sure!"

"And sometimes…You just can't help but know he was right," Moltres noted.

"Very right," Suicune nodded, "Sometimes you can just tell."

"Oh God…Fluffy moment…" Morty shielded his eyes as Lance kissed his sister, "Quickly! Protect yourselves!"

"Mortimer Michael Hikoboshi!" Eevy stomped.

He screeched and ran away, ducking behind Lisle, "And other times…You know he's right, but truly do wonder," Entei snickered.

"If nothing else, she can control the Council members," Articuno pointed out, watching Eevy run past after her brother.

"Yes, but can she stop Rubeus?" Celebi questioned.

"Sure she can!" Mew clapped, spinning around in the air, "She _is_ the Angel of the Prophecy."

"She is," Lugia folded his wings down, "She is powerful, cunning, and houses the soul of the Council's leader."

"That she is," Mewtwo regarded the screaming Champion with nothing but a grin, "That she is…"

"Come back here!"

"NO! STAY AWAY! Go kill your boyfriend or something, not me! AH! AHH! AHHH! AHHHH!"

"Come on, you two…Why don't we calm down now?" Eusine requested, sweatdropping.

They stopped and turned on him, "Butt out!" they hissed, then continued running.

"Wow…That was polite," Rachel murmured as they shot past.

"And yet again…" Kudou slowly shook his head, "Everything has changed, yet they remain the same…"

*^~^*Part 7: End*^~^* 

_A/N: OK, so it was extremely fluffy at the end. And OK, so my dad didn't appreciate that "drippy nonsense" at the end of "his" story...But nyaa on him. Anyways...It's finally complete! Hurrah! And now I get to go and work some more! ...Not hurrah! Ah well...Why don't you go and join the Fanlisting now, hmm? [Usagi: Ooh...Suttle.] -_- Quiet, you...Well, see ya'! _

*^~^*Pro_V*^~^*  
.:O=Usagi-chan=O:.  
)>*Itachi-chan* -~+Spin-chan+~-  
-=O~The Other Pokemon~O=-  
**Next:** Special Edition: TAA USA: Even the _title_ sounds painful.  
TAA Pokemon Of The Month: May 2003: The Long Body Pokemon Furret & The Rushing Pokemon Linoone 


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